The departure of Oprah Winfrey from syndicated TV has some
upside, according to Hearst Television vice president programming, Emerson
Coleman.
"People are optimistic that there are new opportunities for
fresh programming beyond 2011," said Coleman, speaking to B&C after a panel
on syndication hosted by Mediapost.
Coleman said that there was a fresh sense of optimism and
confidence about new product and while people had "great respect for Oprah,
"seeing some new fresh voices is important."
"The Oprah replacement is probably on the air right now,
it's a compilation of a lot of shows and will create a lot of opportunities for
us as a business," said Disney-ABC Domestic TV's ad sales chief Howard Levy.
On the topic of competition with cable - given Oprah's
departure to OWN and Martha Stewart's move to Hallmark Channel -Levy observed that cable hadn't really
attacked the daytime women's market very hard and that the top shows for women
were still repeats of NCIS and Law and Order. "It's zero affect," he
said.
Levy also noted a new buoyancy at the station level. "They
are certainly seeing a lot more money coming into the marketplace. They were
decimated with the cars, and the cars are spending at the same levels as before
and in some markets a little bit more."
As a result some stations were saying, "We may not want to take this
sitcom out, because maybe stations are losing too much inventory and we're ready
to come back."
