If you’re a fan of daytime TV, then this feels like the end of an era. After 13 seasons on the air, The Dr. Oz Show has been canceled. Its final episode aired on January 14, 2022.
Normally, a TV show getting canceled is a sign that it is no longer popular. But Fox had originally renewed Dr. Oz through Spring 2023, meaning it was still getting good ratings for the network.
That brings us to the big question: why, exactly, did The Dr. Oz Show get the ax?
If you’re ready for answers, we’re doing a deep dive into the real reason why The Dr. Oz Show got canceled. Just be warned: you may never look at Dr. Oz the same after this!
Why did ‘The Dr. Oz Show’ get canceled?
The primary reason that The Dr. Oz Show got canceled has nothing to do with viewers and ratings. Instead, it has everything to do with the good doctor’s political ambitions.
On November 30, 2021, Dr. Oz announced that he would be running in the Republican primary for the United States Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
A longstanding “equal-time” rule means that networks must give equal airtime to political candidates. So, if The Dr. Oz Show had gone on, Fox would have to give the same amount of airtime to any of the doctor’s political opponents as well. With Dr. Oz getting five hours of airtime every week, it wasn’t exactly a practical situation for the network to have to give other candidates the same amount of airtime as him.
In fact, as soon as Dr. Oz announced his candidacy, Fox TV stations in Pennsylvania (as well as ones in New York City and Cleveland that are seen in Pennsylvania) immediately dropped The Dr. Oz Show from their schedule in order to comply with the equal-time rule!
And it turns out, Dr. Oz’s Senate run didn’t just lose him his TV show. It also lost him his position on a presidential fitness council.
President Biden fired Dr. Oz from a fitness council
While Dr. Oz’s Senate bid took many people by surprise, this isn’t his first foray into politics. In fact, Dr. Oz was appointed by President Donald Trump to serve on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition in 2018. And in December 2020, Trump reappointed Dr. Oz on the council for another two-year term.
However, in March 2022, President Joe Biden had a message for Dr. Oz: resign from the fitness council or be fired.
As CNN points out, Biden’s administration has a rule that someone who is a federal candidate cannot serve on a presidential board. So, President Biden’s reason for firing Dr. Oz was not personal.
However, Dr. Oz took Biden’s request very, very personally!
Dr. Oz says Biden should fire Dr. Fauci instead
Many have noted that as Dr. Oz’s political ambitions deepened, he seemed to be taking notes from Donald Trump’s political playbook. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that after receiving Biden’s request, Dr. Oz took to Trump’s former favorite platform, Twitter, to complain about it.
“I received this letter on behalf of @POTUS requesting I resign from the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition,” Dr. Oz wrote. “It’s sad that he would politicize such an important issue like health. The doctor he should ask to resign is Dr. Fauci, for a multitude of obvious reasons.”
In the subsequent Twitter conversation that followed, Dr. Oz made his position on the resignation request quite clear: “If President Biden wants to politicize health, he will have to fire me.”
After failing to resign, Dr. Oz was fired from his unpaid and mostly honorary position on the President’s Council on March 30 (via USA Today). Between this and the loss of his TV show, Oz can now focus entirely on running for the Senate.
What show replaced ‘The Dr. Oz Show’?
A casual viewer might think the sudden cancellation of The Dr. Oz Show would mean the doctor is on bad terms with the network. But given which show replaced his, that is most certainly not the case!
Only three days after Dr. Oz’s last show, his time slot was filled by a new show, The Good Dish. And this show is hosted by none other than Daphne Oz, better known as Dr. Oz’s daughter.
Obviously, this new show is very different from the one that came before. But the network is gambling that Dr. Oz has enough effective star power to get his fans to check out his daughter’s show.