• by Ken Liebeskind , August 1, 2002

Interep Interactive, the online ad sales division of radio rep firm Interep, announced it has been chosen to sell ads for Dr. Phil.com, the website dedicated to Oprah Winfrey Show’s Dr. Phil McGraw, whose own daily TV show will debut Sept. 16.

The site goes live later this month and will include content from the TV show, additional health information and an email function. Dr. Phil currently appears on Oprah a few times a week, dispensing advice about behavior and psychology.

His TV show, produced by Harpo Productions and Paramount Domestic Television and distributed by King World Productions, will run on stations across the country that haven't been determined yet.

John Durham, COO of Internet Interactive, says he won't work closely with Harpo on ad sales for the Web, saying, "We won't work together, but we'll keep each other apprised. TV pushes national for their market clearance, but we have a different strategy." He'll target package goods companies like Kraft, General Foods and Coca Cola -- "soap, cars, hair and wellness products," he says. "We'll package around a charter promo partnership, like the way TV was sold years ago, like Texaco sponsored the Texaco Hour. We'll have five or six advertisers who will buy core packages on the site."

The advertisers will run a mix of traditional and non-traditional units, from banners to text links to Skyscrapers, he says.

He calls Dr. Phil, "one of the biggest Web/TV launches, with the Web component a major part of the effort. Heavy traffic to the site is predicted because traffic to the Dr. Phil section of Oprah.com is already high. "This will be an opportunity for the show's advertisers to reach viewers with a longer-form interactive message," Durham says.