MD Marketing recruits former KOLR anchor

Former KOLR-10 anchor Joe Daues, who left Springfield for Tulsa in December 2003, has returned to the Ozarks. But he won’t be in front of the camera.
Daues started a new job Feb. 2 as sales manager for MD Marketing, a medical marketing company for physician groups across the United States.
The company is under the umbrella of Springfield-based Opfer Communications Inc.
In Tulsa, Daues worked as the 5 o’clock anchor at the Fox affiliate, Clear Channel Communications’ KOKI-23, a job from which he was fired four months ago. Daues received three months of severance pay.
“That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been fired,” Daues said. “When I was interviewing for other jobs, other news directors said, ‘You’re nobody in the broadcasting business until you’re fired at least once.’”
The grounds of Daues’ firing are uncertain. “(KOKI) told me the ratings in my show had tripled, so I had done really well in a year, yet they told me I didn’t test well in a focus group,” Daues said.
Officials at KOKI declined to comment, citing Clear Channel policy.
Going a different direction in his career involves a certain amount of risk, he said.
“I don’t consider myself that old, but, midcareer, to make a significant change like this, it’s a leap of faith for me and for my wife, who is moving back with me,” Daues said.
His wife, former KY3 reporter Christine Bielawski, is reporting for Oklahoma’s public television station, Oklahoma Educational Television Authority. Daues said that she is job-hunting in the Springfield area.
“We’re really excited to come back,” Daues said. “We’re moving to a rural area south of Nixa and so it’s going to be quite a change for us. We’re downtowners.”

MD Marketing
In his new role, Daues works with account manager Stacy Boysen-Krauck to create media strategies for physician groups.
“We sort of act as the agent for these doctors’ groups and we take care of the whole umbrella of services that they need to market their business, to advertise, and to get the word out to other physicians about who they are, what they do, and how they can help that particular client,” Daues said. “We’re trying to develop marketing strategies, stressing a comprehensive plan. It’s the whole ball of wax. It’s not just an advertising campaign.”
MD Marketing in its current form has existed for a year, but Scott Opfer, president of Opfer Communications, said the business actually started long ago.
“For the last 16 years, Opfer Communications has been creating marketing materials for doctors. About three years ago, it was spun into a separate entity, but in the last year we have gone full-tilt in that we have made a concerted effort to really expand the business,” Opfer said.
When the decision was made to add a second staff member, there was only one person on Opfer’s list.
“I had the privilege of working side by side with Joe for a number of years at KOLR-10,” he said. “We wanted somebody who was enthusiastic, energetic, dynamic, forward-thinking and motivated. From that very short list of one, that was the guy that I wanted to talk to and have on our team. Joe was in a very similar situation (as me) in that I worked in TV for a number of years and decided to move in a different direction.”
Opfer spent nine years as sports director at KOLR-10, before launching Opfer Communications in 1992.
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