ABC wondering if 'The View' would be better in the afternoons

Would "The View" be better in the afternoon?

That's what the folks at Walt Disney Co.'s ABC are wondering. With Oprah Winfrey leaving daytime television in September 2011 to focus on OWN, the cable network she is partnering on with Discovery Communications, there's a lot of jockeying for her position going on in television-land.

Winfrey's show is syndicated, meaning that it is not tied to a network and instead is sold to individual television stations across the country. But her show is carried on ABC's big-market TV stations, including WABC in New York, KABC in Los Angeles and WLS in Chicago and lots of ABC affiliates across the country. In other words, it is ABC, its stations and affiliates that are most concerned about filling the void that will be created by Winfrey's exit.

While there has been a lot of attention surrounding Ellen DeGeneres and whether her distributor Warner Bros. would try to move her show to ABC stations in big cities (it currently plays on NBC stations in the top markets, including KNBC in  Los Angeles) when Winfrey hits the road, another scenario making the rounds has ABC trying to move "The View" into Winfrey's time slots.

This would be incredibly complex for myriad reasons. First of all, "The View," which airs in the morning, is a network show, meaning it is only carried on ABC stations. If ABC wanted to move "The View" to the afternoon in Winfrey's time slots as a network show, it would need to persuade its TV stations to give back an hour of time that they currently control.

That would be a hard sell. When a local station carries a syndicated show such as Winfrey or DeGeneres, it gets more commercial inventory (about 10 minutes) to sell than it would with a network show (about two minutes). If ABC did want to move "The View," it probably would have to give up more advertising time to its stations to seal a deal. On top of that, not every station carries Winfrey in the afternoon. In Chicago, she airs at 9 a.m.

Another option, although less likely, would be for ABC would be to swap "The View" with "General Hospital," which typically airs at 3 p.m. on most of its stations. The risk there is that "General Hospital" has been running in the afternoon forever and a move to late mornings could severely hurt the show, which is one of the few remaining soap operas.

ABC is also studying whether to try to turn "The View" into a syndicated show. That would mean selling it to individual stations for cash and commercial inventory. ABC affiliates might get upset by the idea of losing the show to the highest bidder, although there is a potential of bigger bucks for ABC and parent Walt Disney Co.

The plus side of turning "The View" into a syndicated show or moving it as a network show is that late afternoon shows have potential to earn more money than shows that run in the morning.

The dangers in all this are fairly obvious. "The View" is working at a mid-morning chat show. It averages about 4 million viewers and of those, more than 1 million are women 25-54. Winfrey gets a bigger audience and it seems unlikely that "The View" would grow a whole lot more running in the afternoon. ABC could end up damaging a successful franchise. If it also moved "General Hospital" as well, it could jeopardize two shows.

"You can’t take something that is working in one place and transplant it somewhere else and assume it will have the same degree of success," warns Bill Carroll, vice president, Katz Television, an industry consulting group.

In other words, look at what NBC just went through with Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno and ask if yourself if the potential rewards are worth the potential screw-ups.

-- Joe Flint

Photo: "The View's" Joy Behar, left, Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Sherri Shepherd. Credit: Bob D'amico / ABC

Comments

[DRE DAWG]

The View would be better off the air! Some have described the co-hosts as having "rapist" wit, but for me it's not really "rape-rape" wit...isn't that right Whoopi?

[Stella]

This would be better taken off the air. Or, perhaps, it should be renamed, Kooks R Us. The only one that makes any sense is Elizabeth Hasselbeck and she's on there to make it "look" like it could be balanced. Putting it in the General Hospital slot will not make people want to watch it. It would only make people want to watch General Hospital.

[Superfish]

Comparing moving the View to the afternoon to the Leno-Conan move is just lazy journalism because the two situations are completley different. NBC didn't move Conan to 11:35pm or Leno to 10pm because they thought both would get higher ratings or make more money, it was a imperfect solution to keeping both hosts in NBC (which obviously did not work). ABC isn't considering moving The View to another timeslot to make room for a up-and-coming show, it's doing it because there's a chance for more ad money in the afternoon.

[Neil]

Look how all these women are nicely dressed in women's clothes while one is dressed in a hermaphrodite combination of a woman's dress and a man's jeans. Why doesn't she smarten up?

[Eliza]

I think ABC should give Conan O'Brien an afternoon show and put him in the Oprah time slot. There. Problem solved. This way, The View and General Hospital will stay in their current spots and ABC will walk away with Conan.

[smo1deringIZ]

First and foremost drop kick Hassellbeck off there. She is just trying to be famous on her husband's celebrity. She is too small minded, judgmental and ridiculous. Someone more well rounded needs to 'lead' the group. They all talk over each other, louder and louder and I don't even like to watch clips. They are ridiculous.

[geo]

Why doesn't ABC syndicate "The View" to ABC affiliates. If an affiliate chooses not to air it, the show can be shopped to competing stations. Affiliates want the early evening commercial inventory and I don't see them giving that up to a typical network/local split. "The View" is a strong enough show that I could see it doing a nice job of taking Oprah's place.

[Patricia]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[lilian]

Sometimes the cohosts look like they're afraid of Elisabeth. They let her rant and rave and dont challenge her enough, particularly with her hypocrisy. With the Palin "retard" issue, strongly condemns Obama, but when Joy mentions that Palin thought it was ok if Limbaugh said it, Elisabeth responded in anger to Joy "why did you bring that up?". Elisabeth rattled on that this was the second time that the Obama administration put their foot in their mouth (the first being when Obama mentioned the special olympics for bowling). But Joy couldn't mention Palin's double standard when Palin defended Limbaugh's use of the word "retard"? The girl is a hipocrit and I find it very annoying that the cohost just let her get away it. They sat there and didn't really say anything, when Elisabeth is the one that brings up old stuff all the time. I've already started to switch the channel.

[Mary]

I like the View. But Elisabeth is very annoying she always always bring up old stuff ,and she's a hipocrit of Obama and his administration, Tell me what Palin has done because she don't know the name of her news paper.Then she had a nerve to open for Palin, I knew she was a Blonde.She is very annoying,loud,judgmental and ridiculous. She wouldn't be known if it wasn't for her Husband .I like Joy Behar, Barbara Walters, Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd.Elsiabeth is just to loud.