Q&A: Bravo Media’s Frances Berwick

***Video Interview - Frances Berwick***Earlier this month, Frances Berwick was elevated to president of Bravo Media, after having served as the executive VP and general manager since January 2008. Under Berwick’s oversight, Bravo ramped up its original programming by 33 percent, and has achieved record-breaking successes across all ratings and financial measures for the past four years. The mandate has always been to evolve Bravo from a television network into a full lifestyle brand. And with its stable of ever-expanding original franchises, which have given way to numerous online and consumer-product extensions, Bravo is continuing on its growth path at a quick pace. 

TV REAL: To what do you attribute the channel’s growth and popularity?
BERWICK: It’s really all about the original programming. We have a huge variety of it now. It was only three years ago that we were just programming one night of originals and the rest were all a combination of acquired series, movies and repeats. We’ve gradually built up, now we have originals five nights a week.

If you look around the dial, there’s a lot of original programming out there, but I don’t think anybody is growing the way that we are. It really is about an investment in originals, because that’s what seems to be driving our viewers.

TV REAL: The Bravo viewers seem to be very passionate about the programming as well.
BERWICK: It’s not uncommon, thankfully, to hear people say, "I love Bravo, I watch every show," because our viewers tend to be a little fanatical about them. We find that when people do watch the network, they’re very passionate about it.

TV REAL: How are you working to connect with viewers?
BERWICK: What we’re doing is building out what we call our "Passion Groups" or "Affinity Program Groups:" Food, fashion, beauty, design and pop culture. The great thing about the schedule that we’re rolling out this year is that there’s a lot of production and development going on in each of those buckets.

One of the shows that we have is Kell on Earth. It’s a different side of the fashion industry that has ever been shown before. It’s the gritty underbelly, the less beautiful part of it. These people work like dogs to get the fashion shows during Fashion Week and events going. It almost makes you stressed watching it, because they’re working so hard. Then again, they work in this incredibly fabulous industry.

We have a lot of popular characters or formats that we have done successful spin-offs of. Last year we spun-off Top Chef and we created Top Chef Masters, which is the chefs who have a talent for the high-caliber restaurants who have really established a name for themselves competing against each other. We’re now moving into pastry chefs with Top Chef: Just Desserts. We’re very excited about that. It’s amazing the characters in that world. You think that it’s just another part of the overall culinary world, but there’s so little overlap between the pastry chefs and the chefs who have appeared on Top Chef.

One of the new series is a spin-off of The Real Housewives of New York City, giving Bethenny Frankel her own series with Bethenny Getting Married? Our viewers love Bethenny, she has such a sense of humor about how she approaches everything in her life, from her career and trying to drive her healthy-eating business to her social life and her interactions with people—she’s just a hilarious person. Bravo viewers have really connected with her.

TV REAL: How are viewers engaging with the network’s content off-air, through Bravo’s digital offerings?
BERWICK: There’s a lot of opportunity that we give our viewers to give feedback, to speak directly to us. Whether on conventional message boards or during a show like Watch What Happens Live, which is a live weekly topical show that’s hosted by our own head of production and development, Andy Cohen. They can text in, they can email, they can call in and ask questions for Andy or their favorite "Bravo-lebrities" or the guest of the day.

We also do stunts like the Virtual Viewing Party, where people can correspond during the shows live with cast members. So during the finale of the last season of The Real Housewives of New York City, we had all of the wives tweeting and our viewers were responding to them and asking them questions. We connect with their Facebook pages too, so it’s a whole social community that fuels this whole overall engagement and this passion for the characters.

TV REAL: The Bravo merchandise also does quite well, doesn’t it?
BERWICK: That’s a big part of our strategy. It’s the idea to provide a deeper experience and a deeper engagement, taking it to the next level. You can dress like a Real Housewife, with your leisurewear from Royal Plush. You can cook like a Top Chef with your Top Chef knives and with the cookbook—there’s many other things coming down the line, you can order Top Chef flowers that are styled with vegetables, fruit and flowers and artistic cutlery.

It’s tightening that connection. We found that it’s really resonated. We now have two New York Times best-selling cookbooks, and we have a third one coming out later this year. It’s very exciting to see it all take off. It’s all about the audience that we have and the fact that they are really into the characters and into the shows. They have that immediate brand recognition with a show like Top Chef. It’s an incredibly broad show that appeals to many different types of people, it’s not just foodies who want to learn to perfect cooking techniques, it’s also for people who never cook, who don’t even know how to boil an egg, but they love it just for the drama and to see the talent.

TV REAL: Are there any areas that you’re looking to enter that you’re not already in?
BERWICK: There are a couple of areas that we haven’t explored yet or haven’t explored in a long time. The one really brand-new area is part of our design category; we’ve never really touched the art world. We think it’s absolutely fascinating, because it’s populated by these incredibly talented, and often very eccentric, characters.

The new series that we’re doing with the Magical Elves—who are our long-time partners on Top Chef—and Sarah Jessica Parker’s production company, Pretty Matches, is an art competition show [Work of Art]. The artists work across lots of different media and it’s a great look at the art world for anyone who knows nothing about art through to people who are very art-savvy. There’s something for everybody there. You can look at the results of the challenges that they do and you just think, How did they do that it’s absolutely exquisite, or Oh my god I wouldn’t want that on my wall I’d have nightmares. It’s amazingly intricate and you can see the craft that’s gone into it. It’s the same reaction to a show like The Fashion Show, where you see those fashions coming down the runway and you have a visceral reaction to them. They are also great characters, I have to say.