Undercover Boss: Roto-Rooter
Easter Sunday, April 4th at 9:00 p.m EST on CBS
Watch the episode anytime after the broadcast on CBC.com
As most of you now know, CBS Television issued a news release on Friday naming Roto-Rooter as one of the companies taking part it its new series, Undercover Boss. This means it is now OK to talk openly and publicly about Roto-Rooter’s involvement in the show. Unfortunately, the network still has not given us an air date for our episode. But as soon as we have a date, we will distribute printed materials to each branch so that our service technicians will be able to hand out something to our customers, promoting our involvement in the show and encouraging them to watch it.
Additionally, we will provide information, video and local Roto-Rooter contact information to CBS affiliates throughout the country, with special emphasis on New Orleans, Chicago, Des Moines and Cincinnati where our episode was taped. We want to give CBS stations every opportunity to localize the story and promote the show and Roto-Rooter on their local newscasts.
We will also be pitching stories to radio, newspaper and web reporters / bloggers who cover TV entertainment. CBS is going to help us with a radio media tour on all CBS radio stations. This means we will be offering up Rick Arquilla and some of the featured employees for interviews wherever possible so that we can take full advantage of this special opportunity to promote Roto-Rooter. This effort will build gradually as we approach our episode’s actual broadcast. We want most of the promotions to occur during the week leading up to the broadcast in order to build the audience.
Additionally, we will be adding Undercover Boss banners and new UCB content to the Roto-Rooter web site, our Facebook page and our Twitter page. Meanwhile, click on the link below to read a topical story in the on-line version of today’s Cincinnati Enquirer. This article also appears in print in today’s newspaper:
‘Boss’ lets secret out: Roto-Rooter undercover
By John Kiesewetter: Cincinnati.com
Roto-Rooter employees summoned to a 75th anniversary celebration last month at Duke Energy Convention Center received quite a surprise.
As TV cameras rolled, President Rick L. Arquilla told 225 people that he just finished shooting “Undercover Boss” for CBS – and then asked everyone to keep the secret.
“We’ve been dying to talk about it,” says Paul Abrams, public relations manager for the Roto-Rooter Services Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Downtown-based Chemed Corp.
CBS announced the news Friday. It’s the second “Undercover Boss” episode shot here for the nine-week series. No broadcast date has been set.
Arquilla, who turned 57 Sunday, spent 10 days last month filming scenes at Chemed headquarters on East Fifth Street, at his Symmes Township home, and with Roto-Rooter crews in New Orleans, Des Moines and Chicago.
He did not work with any plumbers here on the show, which follows a company executive doing tasks side-by-side with employees.
“He was doing anything any Roto-Rooter technician would do. He fixed clogged toilets and crawled around in places where you wouldn’t want to venture,” says Rodger Roeser, owner of Eisen Marketing Group in Newport, which works with Roto-Rooter.
Arquilla, who started with the company in 1989, also used a high-pressure water jet to blast grease from sewer pipes.
“He did a lot of the dirtiest jobs in Roto-Rooter, but we don’t know which ones will be in the show,” Abrams says.
Shooting started Feb. 7, the day “Undercover Boss” premiered to record ratings after the Super Bowl on CBS.
Employees were told that the company was filming a documentary for the 75th anniversary of Roto-Rooter, the largest plumbing provider in North America, founded in 1935.
Arquilla’s Roto-Rooter Group oversees 116 locations with about 3,000 employees. He was identified as Hank Denman, a new employee.
“The explanation was that we were showing the company through the eyes of employees, including the eyes of this new guy,” Abrams says.
The Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Film Commission, which has marketed the area to Hollywood-based reality TV producers, helped the company secure permits and book hotel rooms, says director Kristen Erwin.
The film commission also helped “Undercover Boss” shoot Dave Rife, a Columbus-based White Castle executive, in Covington and Hamilton restaurants, and the Covington frozen food plant, for the Feb. 28 episode.
Sunday’s “Undercover Boss” also was shot in the region, with Churchill Downs COO Bill Carstanjen doing various jobs at the Louisville racetrack.
In addition to Roto-Rooter, CBS announced that the remaining new episodes star executives from 1-800-Flowers, Georgia-based Herschend Family Entertainment and GSI Commerce. Herschend owns Newport Aquarium, Dollywood, Branson’s Silver Dollar City and two dozen other family theme parks and attractions. No scenes for that show were shot at Newport Aquarium, a spokesman says.
