U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz’s syndicated “Dr. Oz Show” will air for the last time next time, Sony Pictures Television said on Monday.
The last episode of the “Dr. Oz Show", now in its 13th season, will be on Jan. 14, after more than a decade on the air. The announcement comes as its host, Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, runs for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in Pennsylvania.
The show, which launched in 2009, will be replaced with a cooking show called “The Good Dish” featuring his daughter, Daphne Oz.
Sony in its announcement didn’t mention Oz’s candidacy. “The Good Dish” will premier on Jan. 17, and will be a combination talk-cooking show where hosts Daphne Oz, Gail Simmons, and Jamika Pessoa, will serve up a dish of the day, it said.
Producers boasted that the new show would be “the most fun you can have in the kitchen without having to do the dishes".
Sony said it has commitments to air “The Good Dish” in stations representing 90 percent of the nation’s population.
“‘The Good Dish,‘ which initially grew out of popular weekly segments on ’The Dr. Oz Show,' is an opportunity for viewers to take a seat at the table and enjoy delicious, family-friendly recipes served up by the best of the best who bring professional insight, real-life wisdom and dish on the topics of the day while making delectable dishes,” Sony said in a statement.
It comes two weeks after television stations in Philadelphia, New York City and Cleveland that are seen in Pennsylvania said they would take “Dr. Oz Show” off the air, for fear that the Federal Communications Commission’s “equal time” rules would allow rival candidates to seek similar air time.
Oz, a longtime resident of New Jersey, on Nov. 30 announced he was running as a “conservative Republican” in Pennsylvania, describing himself as a health care advocate and as a top-notch surgeon.
“We have not managed our crises as effectively as past generations,” he wrote. “During the pandemic, I learned that when you mix politics and medicine, you get politics instead of solutions. That’s why I am running for the U.S. Senate: to help fix the problems and to help us heal.
