Local 6’s Post-Newsweek sister station, KPRC in Houston, has yanked Dr. Phil from its schedule — replacing the doc’s show with another doc — Dr. Oz.

Here’s what Broadcasting and Cable reported:  KPRC decided to remove Dr. Phil from its schedule due to disappointment with sliding ratings and disagreement over the show’s content, said Post-Newsweek President Alan Frank. The station is continuing to pay the show’s license fees, although it is not airing the show’s national commercials, which are sold by CTD and provide additional income to the syndicator. “It’s out of desperation that I did this,” said Frank, who said he’s personally met with show star and executive producer Dr. Phil McGraw to try and get his concerns resolved. “I did everything but stand on my head to get [CBS’] attention over the years.”

And in Detroit, B&C says another Post-Newsweek station – WDIV — is airing Dr. Oz at 3 p.m. — and has seen its 4 p.m. news ratings improve by 33 percent compared to last year.

The irony is that even if WKMG wanted to replace Dr. Phil with Dr. Oz, it can’t. Hearst-Argyle’s O-Town duopoly of WESH and WKCF locked up Dr. Oz in this market. If anything, looks like it was – at the very least — a good defensive move by WESH.

Back in July, WESH-2,  WKCF-CW 18 and parent Hearst Television announced a partnership with Liberman Broadcasting to offer its Estrella TV to Central Florida viewers on WKCF’s digital sub-channel 18.3. The original start date was sometime in in mid-August; now Estrella will go live on Monday.

According to Broadcasting and Cable, Orlando is one of 17 markets nationally where Estrella is launching. Among the other Florida markets are Miami, on Sunbeam’s WSVN-Fox 7, and West Palm Beach, on Hearst’s WPBF-ABC 25

Estrella is giving partnering stations an opportunity to cash in with Hispanic-targeted advertising. According to B&C, “The affiliate model sees the stations keep 40 percent of the commercial inventory, according to Liberman, with Estrella retaining the other 60 percent. Stations will have the opportunity to put local touches on the programming lineup, such as a Spanish-language newscast produced by station talent to air on Estrella.”

Said WESH/WKCF GM Jim Carter in a news release: “We are always looking for ways to better serve our large and growing Hispanic population, and with LBI’s Spanish-language broadcast experience reaching back to the 70’s, we know we’ve found the right partner.”

Hearst sister station WESH-2 will produce the 30-minute newscast, which will air seven days a week.

“WESH 2 News at 11 has developed a very strong following. We believe the time is right to offer a 10 p.m. newscast for Central Florida viewers who prefer an earlier news option,” Jim Carter, WESH/WKCF president and general manager, said in a news release.

Monday-Friday, the newscast will be anchored by WESH’s 11 p.m. anchor team: Martha Sugalski, Jim Payne, sports director Guy Rawlings and Chief Meteorologist Tony Mainolfi. The Saturday and Sunday news will feature Aixa Diaz and meteorologist Malachi Rodgers. 

Bud Hedinger was the anchor on WKCF’s previous 10 p.m. news — the area’s first 10 o’clock newscast. It was very popular, often topping WOFL’s then-upstart 10 p.m. news. But WKCF’s owner at the time decided it was better to show sitcom reruns than to compete against Fox 35 and then-newcomer WRDQ (which started airing a WFTV-produced newscast).

“At a time when some news organizations are cutting back on their coverage, we’re excited to provide Central Florida news viewers with even more options at a time they may find more convenient,” Carter said.

Read more from WESH here.

“We were No. 4 before we made the changes,” WKMG General Manager Skip Valet told Boedeker. “I think I’m better serving the audience. We’re in the summertime, and everyone is down a little bit. I’m focused on how competitive we are in the morning and at 11 p.m.”

More July ratings numbers after the jump …

As you likely know, WKMG dropped its 4, 5 and 5:30 p.m. newscasts in May, and it expanded its 6 p.m. show to an hour. The July ratings show that WKMG ran fourth in the 25-54 demo in the evening –  35,500 viewers for WFTV, 26,000 for WESH, almost 14,000 for WOFL and nearly 12,000 for WKMG.

Read Hal’s full story here.

The station also notes that it is closing in on WFTV’s top-rated Eyewitness News in the evening — trailing now by 9,600 adults in the demo.

In the morning race, WESH’s audience is up 34 percent from last July. In the early evening — and without competition from WKMG from 5-6 — WESH 2 is up 58 percent. In late news — despite being saddled with NBC’s prime time as a lead-in — WESH is up 27 percent.

More good and some bad news for WESH after the jump …

“We are extremely pleased that more and more Central Floridians are choosing WESH 2 News as their source for local ‘big story’ coverage and the area’s most accurate local forecast,” WESH GM Jim Carter said in a news release.

Now the bad news. Just as WESH’s morning team moves into first place, it likely won’t be there for long. Sunrise anchor Scott Walker leaves for a new gig in New Orleans on Aug. 21, and viewers typically don’t like change.

In more O-Town TV news, WESH sister station WKCF-CW 18 is boasting that its Seinfeld reruns at 11 and 11:30 p.m. are tied for No. 1 in the adults 18-49 demo. The station says that with its late-night comedy block of King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond and Seinfeld, it has four of the top five shows in the demo in the weeknight late fringe race (10 p.m. to 2 a.m.).

WESH-2,  WKCF-CW 18 and parent Hearst Television announced Thursday a partnership with Liberman Broadcasting to offer its Estrella TV to Central Florida viewers. Estrealla, which broadcasts original Spanish-language content produced in the United States, will appear on WKCF’s digital sub-channel 18.3 starting in mid-August.

“We are always looking for ways to better serve our large and growing Hispanic population, and with LBI’s Spanish-language broadcast experience reaching back to the 70’s, we know we’ve found the right partner,” WESH/WKCF President and General Manager Jim Carter said in a news release.

Lenard Liberman, Executive Vice President, LBI Media, said, “We are excited to work with WESH and WKCF to offer Estrella TV’s original, high-quality programming to a new group of Hispanic viewers in the Orlando – Daytona Beach, Florida market. This partnership solidifies our commitment to launch Estrella TV this quarter and to finalize our position as a network that will benefit Hispanic audiences and advertisers nationwide.”

According to the news release, Estrella TV will provide a unique mix of programs, including musical-variety, comedy, scripted drama, talk and game shows, as well as a daily national newscast and a news magazine show, all featuring top Latin American talent. Network owner LBI is the largest producer of Spanish-language television programming in the United States, and currently produces 56 hours of original television per week.

In addition to competing against WVEN-Univision 26 and WTMO-Telemundo 15, Estrella will also go up against LATV — the Hispanic channel offered on WKMG-Local 6’s digital sub-channel 6.2. WKMG parent Post-Newsweek has a distrbution deal with LATV that began in January 2007.

Estrella TV will also be the third digital sub-channel offered by the WESH-WKCF duopoly. WESH has WeatherPlus on its 2.2 sub-channel, and WKCF has This TV, a 24-hour movie channel, on its 18.2 sub-channel.