With the collective attention of the television industry centered this week on the launch of OWN,
Oprah Winfrey’s new cable channel, the Chicago television station where it all started was preoccupied with the question raised many months ago: how to replace Ms. Winfrey when her daily show ends in September?
In the hope that lightning can strike twice, Emily Barr, president and general manager of the ABC-owned WLS-Channel 7, decided to take the risk of developing a new local program instead of the cheaper route of buying a syndicated show.
In the works is a one-hour, live local program, five days a week in front of a studio audience at the station’s headquarters at 190 North State Street. A three-minute promotional tape outlining the broad idea of the show over the summer, reported by the media columnist Robert Feder, had the working title of “Morning Rush.” Ms. Barr, 52, who has led the station for the last 13 years, has hired two producers to develop the show and is hunting for a host or hosts for the program.
Bill Rancic, a former winner on “The Apprentice,” and his wife, Giuliana Rancic, news anchor on the E! network, are said to be under consideration. A station spokeswoman would say only that the station is looking at a lot of people for the host position. Representatives for Mr. Rancic and Ms. Rancic did not return phone calls.
Though Ms. Winfrey was plucked from a Baltimore TV station by Channel 7 bosses to host a local, live show 25 years ago called “AM Chicago,” Ms. Barr insisted that the new show would not be back-to-the-future for the station. “We are not trying to recreate the ‘
Oprah Winfrey Show,’ ” Ms. Barr said in an interview. “I don’t think that’s possible. I think we would be foolish to even attempt it.”
Yet, nowhere has Ms. Winfrey left a more indelible mark than on Channel 7, where many viewers turned on her show at 9 a.m. and never changed the channel, helping boost the station atop the ratings for several years. Though Ms. Winfrey and her program rose to international stardom on hundreds of stations, Chicagoans still considered her show a local Channel 7 production, even after she took over the rights of the program and moved it to her West Side Harpo Studios years ago, laying the groundwork for a media empire.
Her consistently high ratings and broad programming in recent years made her a natural draw for advertisers as well. Media buyers are watching closely how Channel 7, and other stations around the country, attempt to fill the lost ratings. “What we are losing is something we knew was a consistent rating and a strong rating,” said Kevin Gallagher, executive vice president and director of local activation at Starcom USA, the Chicago-based media agency. Media buyers want to know “how are we going to make up those ratings?” he said. “Viewers will settle on something eventually.”
What viewers have wanted over the past few years has been a moving target. Critics contend that trying a live, local show is a big risk at a time of increased cost pressures on local television stations during a sluggish economy. At stake are the ratings Ms. Winfrey delivers, which in turn allow the station to charge more for advertising. Television executives in town suggest that viewers missing their daily fill of Ms. Winfrey at 9 a.m. will sample programming on other stations.
With Oprah now running in a lucrative time slot that affects the number of viewers who tune in the rest of the day, Ms. Barr said that doing nothing is a greater risk. More aggressive steps are needed to keep the audience intact, she said.
Many stations around the country that run the “Oprah Winfrey Show” in the late afternoon can more easily add news at that hour because, for them, the show usually leads into the late afternoon newscasts. According to Mr. Gallagher, that allows many stations to stretch their costs and control more of the advertising revenue.
In addition, the marketplace is much more fragmented than it was 25 years ago, when cable television was not a threat, three networks ruled the airwaves and no one had the Internet or smart phones to distract them from viewing. Critics contend that Channels 7’s strategy is a throwback to a time when it was easier to take a chance on new, live, local programming.
“We never know what viewers are going to do,” Mr. Gallagher said.
Now viewers have hundreds of channels to choose from, thanks to cable TV providers. Even local stations, including Channel 7, have separate digital channels to provide more options to viewers. The NBC-owned WMAQ-Channel 5 recently launched “Chicago Nonstop,” hyper-local news and lifestyle programming on one of its digital channels in an effort to attract even more local viewers.
Other stations in the market may shake up their programming to try to take advantage of more viewer sampling when Ms. Winfrey’s show goes away.
“We’ve been competing against a huge show, and we’ve counter-programmed against that,” said Mike Renda, vice president and general manager of the Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32. “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Mr. Renda said, “sets up their day and rolls from there. People are going to look around for options. We’ve got some stuff up our sleeve.”
For Ms. Barr, the dilemma at Channel 7 is far more challenging than it is at other stations that carry the Oprah show in the late afternoon. The 9 a.m. slot is sandwiched between two programs that are fairly strong, especially with women: “Good Morning America” and “The View.” “Something has to complement those shows,” Ms. Barr said. “It’s like that second cup of coffee.”
“Here, Oprah really remained a local show,” Ms. Barr said, adding that the idea is to provide continuity you get with a show done in front of an audience, but making sure it’s local. “We’re not looking for a show that will go into syndication. That’s not our plan.” Ms. Barr is giving few details on the development of the new show. She hired Marlaine Selip, as the new show’s executive producer, and Cindy Patrasso, as supervising producer. Both worked together for the former talk show host Phil Donahue.
“My only marching orders were that I want it to be live, I want it to be fun and local and we should try to take advantage of things that didn’t exist 25 years before,” Ms. Barr said, referring to things like Skype and
Twitter. “Whatever the ‘ittering’ thing of the day is,” she said.
