By Charlotte Dulany
“On Patrol: Live,” a REELZ original docuseries following police officers in real time, shares stories of car chases, wanted felons and missing persons. The series was recently handed a 90-episode renewal through January 2024, and is available to stream on Peacock and on demand. Cynopsis spoke with series host Dan Abrams and REELZ SVP of Advertising Sales Bill Rosolie on the impact this series has had on the subjects, the network and the ad space.
DAN ABRAMS
Last year, it was announced that The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Black and Missing Foundation were joining forces with On Patrol: Live to help solve real ongoing cases of missing people. What have the results been so far?
Abrams: Since the weekly “Missing” segments debuted in July 2022, a total of 17 people – a majority of them children – have been recovered after being featured on the show. It’s always a great day in the studio when we’re able to bring in NCMEC’s Angeline Hartmann or BAMFI founders Natalie & Derrica Wilson to share that a missing individual has been reunited with their loved ones.
To what do you attribute the success of the partnership?
Angeline, Natalie and Derrica are invaluable partners, and astounding advocates. Their tireless work with their respective organizations is extraordinary. We also have to credit the power of #OPNation – when we call on our viewers to reach out with any information they may have, fans are also resharing the “Missing” segments from the show’s platforms to get the word out far and wide on social. That additional exposure is crucial in helping NCMEC and BAMFI get closer to bringing missing people home safely.
Is there a case that was particularly moving or meaningful for you?
We actually just aired a great update from Angeline at NCMEC – less than two weeks after 14-year-old Mickey Nedimyer’s case was featured on the show, he was found safe and reunited with his family. He had been missing from his hometown in Altoona, Pennsylvania since last fall. As a parent, I can only imagine the anguish someone goes through not knowing if their child is safe, and I’m so grateful that “On Patrol: Live” can be a vehicle to help bring kids home.
BILL ROSOLIE
What makes “On Patrol: Live” attractive to advertisers?
The first is the rating. If a show is great, and it’s not a highly rated show, it has limited value. So the first thing is the rating of the show. The second thing that goes into the value is original content, especially live content. This has a perceived higher value for advertisers, predominantly because your assumption is with live content, that there’s a more engaged audience, specifically with OPL. I’ve never seen a more highly engaged audience in my career with the show. I mean, it’s just a super engaged audience. So from an advertisers perspective, when you get an audience that is leaned forward and engaged, there’s a higher propensity for your brand to be transacted on. So, those three things really matter. And the other thing that I think is of value to the advertisers is that most of the new series that come on television, you have anywhere from six to 12 episodes – but you’re gonna get a rating spike with that. Well with us, since this show is nearly 50 weeks a year of original programming. And, plus, it’s not one hour a week, it’s six hours of original content plus the pre-show, which is two hours – so it’s eight hours of original content, pretty much the entire year, there is continuity of ratings there, so there is stability for delivery, for advertisers, and a high value to having that consistency on the air.
Cop and law enforcement shows are a longstanding genre of television programming. What makes “On Patrol: Live” unique to audiences and advertisers?
The first thing that I always answer an advertiser when they say this is ‘Have you watched it?’ Because if you’ve watched it, this is not a traditional cop show. This show is a transparent look at what goes on in day-to-day policing. It’s about basically how police interact with their communities, and the mundane things, in addition to some of the exciting things that go on. So yeah, you’ll see a car chase. But you’ll also see a police officer getting out to help somebody push their car off to the side of the road. There is a big human piece that you would not expect from a police show. As well as host Dan Abrams and analysts Curtis Wilson and Sean “Sticks” Larkin. They each add a perspective; Dan brings the legal perspective to it, both Sticks and Curtis are either current or former police officers, and they give you color commentary.
How has advertising for the series changed since its premiere in July 2022?
There is a lot that has gone on in the last year. This show has not only catapulted us to number one, the top entertainment network on Friday and Saturday nights, but we have one of the top shows. Getting to our advertisers and explaining to them how this network is now a top tier network. That’s what is changing in getting them to understand how this show has catapulted this network to a different level, appointment viewing, like all the things that make a network highly desirable. It takes time to get the world to understand that. So that’s where the major change has been with advertisers. They’re surprised.
Is there still opportunity for growth and expansion for “On Patrol: Live” as far as advertising?
Stay tuned. In the second quarter, we signed our first major sponsorship, where we’re basically going to be doing an hour-long show takeover. First, we had to see what the show was going to do. Once we understood what the show’s numbers were going to be, we had to get out to advertisers and tell them, ‘Hey, this is what it’s doing.’ Now, what we’re talking about are some of the marketing opportunities that can surround that. We’re going to start to now evolve into creating additional opportunities for advertisers beyond just spots and dots, which is really what we were focused on for the first couple of months, and we ran with it.
