It’s only one day, but to quote our partner, London Broadcasting’s Phil Hurley, “This just doesn’t happen in this business.”
D Living, hosted by Kimberly Whitman and Hilary Kennedy, was #1 in its 10 a.m. time slot yesterday among adults 18-49, beating out The View at #2.
D: The Broadcast with Lisa Pineiro, Suzie Humphreys, Pat Smith, and Courtney Kerr came in at #2 in its 9 a.m slot against — ugh — Jerry Springer. But don’t despair about the DFW market: we were only a tenth of a rating point behind. My bet is that Jerry will be toast in another week or two.
Here’s the deal. We launched these programs on Monday of last week. As of today, they’ve only been on the air for nine days. (How long has Jerry been on? How old is that guy?) We launched on an independent station — KTXD, Channel 47 — that until now, few people have heard of, with Daniel Boone re-runs as our lead-in. It is a credit to Phil Hurley’s vision that he believed the D brand could break through to grab the attention of Dallas viewers.
To Phil’s point, the only promotion we’ve done during what we thought was a soft launch has been in D Magazine, dmagazine.com, and through social media — no radio, no billboards, no promotional give-aways or tricks. In a way, we’ve done an experiment in exercising the power of the D-branded print and online channels to launch us in a new medium.
Congratulations to our stars, the lovely ladies who are creating hilarious and informative local television every morning! When we first started talking, Phil told me this TV business was kinda fun. Now I see why.
