Bravo Showcases Upcoming Programming Slate

NEW YORK, July 16: At this year’s Television Critics’
Association press tour (TCA), Bravo announced that a number of signature
franchises such as Top Chef and Project
Runway would return to the network’s
2007-2008 schedule, along with new series such as Better Half, hosted by Curb Your Enthusiasm star Susie Essman.

Bravo has ordered a fourth season of the culinary
competition series Top Chef, which will
be shot in Chicago. A nationwide casting call for season four begins this month
in Atlanta, followed by stops in New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, San
Francisco and Los Angeles. In addition, for the first time, the third season of
Top Chef 3 Miami will conclude
its 14-episode run with a live finale, as the remaining contestants—along
with the viewers at home—learn who will win the title of Top
Chef.

The 2007-2008 season will also see the return of The Real
Housewives of Orange County, which is going
into its third season on Bravo. The “docu-soap” follows a group of women and
their families who live in a picturesque Southern California gated community in
Orange County. The design reality series Project Runway also makes it back onto the network’s schedule for a
fourth season in the fourth quarter of this year. Meanwhile, Bravo plans to air
the final season of 10 new episodes of the Emmy Award-winning Queer
Eye, which follows “Fab Five's” Ted Allen,
Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley and Jai Rodriguez as they attempt
to transform their subjects. The twelve-time Emmy-nominated Inside
the Actors Studio also continues its run on
the network, with all new episodes featuring Michelle Pfeiffer,

Charlie Sheen, Billy Crystal and Anthony Hopkins.

Bravo’s lineup of new series includes Welcome to the
Parker, a behind-the-scenes look at the
five-star Parker Palm Springs hotel, with each episode uncovering the lives,
relationships and drama of the hotel staff. The new series premieres July 26 at
10 p.m. Another new series that has also found a slot on Bravo’s schedule this
summer is Flipping Out, premiering
July 31, which follows Jeff Lewis, an obsessive compulsive and successful
businessman who is able to turn a six-figure profit on every multi-million
property he flips, but also has a tendency to blow up. Tim Gunn's
Guide to Style, a new 8×1-hour series in
which the Project Runway mentor
leads fashion-challenged women to unearth their personal style, premieres
Thursday, September 6, at 10 p.m.

In October, the network is set to premiere Better Half, a new series hosted by Curb Your Enthusiasm star Susie Essman in which the spouses or mates of
two trained professionals—such as chefs, comedians, party planners and
hairstylists—square off in competition. Based on the U.K. series of the
same name, Make Me A Supermodel is
also part of Bravo’s lineup. In the series, 14 people—seven women and
seven men—will compete to launch their modeling career with $100,000 in
cash and an agency contract. In a first for the network, Bravo viewers will
vote to determine the outcome each week. Over a 12-week period, these hopefuls
will live together in a Manhattan loft while undergoing a series of creative
challenges designed to test their professional potential.

In 2008, Bravo will launch a new awards event entitled A-List
Awards. The awards event honors those
people that have made an indelible mark in the arts. The awards will be held in
March 2008 in New York City.

"Our signature series continue to draw more viewers,
with each season building upon the past for both our competition reality and
docu-drama genres,” said Frances Berwick, the executive VP of programming and
production at Bravo. "Our upcoming series' command the highest level of
talent and originality making viewers want to watch what
happens—ultimately driving our success.”