Bravo

Bravo: Bringing Art to the Mass Market

by Lucas Alvarez and Peter DiPrinzio

(870 words total so far)

I. Industrial Analysis

History

Bravo was originally envisioned as an upscale cable network with programming focused on the arts. It was created in 1980 as part of the Cablevision’s Rainbow Media group. For the first 20 years of its history, Bravo programmed mainly movies, specializing in foreign, independent and classic movies. Although it suffered mediocre ratings, it was marketed and became known as a niche station for the arts. In the nineties it expanded to include some original arts-focused programming of its own, such as Inside the Actors Studio.

In 2002 NBC bought Bravo from Cablevision for $1.25 million, which fundamentally shifted the channel’s focus. At this time, Bob Wright, NBC programming director, said Bravo would remain a “specialized network with upmarket artsy programming,” but would include some repurposed content from NBC. However, less than a year later NBC was aggressively promoting its reruns on Bravo and broadcast TV and Bravo decided to produce its first reality show: “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” NBC moved one of its executives, Jeff Gaspin, to lead Bravo’s programming division and he made the channel’s new direction clear: to “continue with arts and entertainment programming” but to “add a dash of style and pop-culture programming.”

Bravo executives were not motivated to make this shift by style trends, but rather economics. The network had only been averaging a 0.3 Nielsen rating during primetime before the shift and NBC wanted to make more money from its new asset by reaching a larger market. Bravo began to program original reality shows with an artsy twist, such as “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and later “Project Runway” to expand its popularity. This strategy worked well to boost ratings and NBC executives even moved later season of “Queer Eye” to broadcast television on NBC. Also, Bravo programmers began running more second-run syndicated shows from NBC and other networks, such the West Wing. Some re-runs like Kingpin featured language and alternate ending not shown on NBC, which they called the “director’s cut.” Since this shift, Bravo has continued in the direction of more mainstream programming, focusing on reality TV and docutainment. 

Ownership

Bravo is owned by NBC Universal Cable, a division of NBC Universal. NBC Universal is a large, wide-reaching media conglomerate owned 80 percent by General Electric. NBC Universal was created in 2004 when NBC merged with Vivendi Universal Entertainment, expanding NBC from a broadcast network and a few cable channels to include theme parks, film studios, television production and even more cable channels. This large conglomerate allows for synergy and sharing of resources among divisions, so that TV and movie characters can be used in theme parks or TV shows produced by an in-house studio.

However, in recent months Comcast has agreed to purchase a majority stake in NBC Universal from GE. Although the merger is pending FCC approval, this would potentially give Comcast control over a singular content and distribution network. This would concentrate the control of a wide variety of  from providing internet and television  to creating, distributing and transmitting television and cable content, to theme parks and Hulu etc. Critics contend this could lead to favorable treatment of affiliated content and hurt competition by giving new conglomerate an unfair advantages.

Branding and Promotion

Branding and Audience

Bravo promotes itself as an origainal, upscale, artsy cable channel. In its own words, Bravo "delivers the best in food, fashion, beauty, design and pop culture to the most engaged, upscale and educated audience in cable."  When Bravo describes its brand's audience it uses similar words: hip, upscale, educated, young. In essence Bravo want to be seen as art-focused, but still accessible to the average viewer. It markets itself as not too highbrow to exclude Real Housewives, and not to simple for In the Actors Studio. Audience: - affluentials - gay/women - 18-49

Bravo's on-screen and online presence is carefully crafted to reflect the essence of the channel's brand and target its desired demographic. Bravo's logo is comprised of bold white text inside a bright blue speech bubble. This conveys the importance of discussions, opinions and even gossip on the channel. The bold lettering and bright colors make it pop and highlight the importance of what is being said. Before 2009, the tagline that appeared with the logo was "Watch What Happens," conveying the originality and unpredictability of the programming, while clearly referenceing their popular reality shows. In 2009 executives changed the tagline to "by Bravo," and customizing it for different shows by inserting a noun in front. This way Real Housewives could be "Drama by Bravo," the website announces "Web by Bravo," Top Chef is called "Food by Bravo" and House re-runs say "Miracle by Bravo." Here is a clip showing the last example.

Promotion

Bravo has kept itsef on the cutting edge of online and social media promotion, especially encouraging viewer participation. Nowhere is this more evident than its unique partnership with the location-based social network foursquare. The joint venture allows dedicated fans of shows such as Real Housewives to virtually "check in" at locations from the show in their respective cities. In 2008, Bravo launched a promotion called B-Hive, which encouraged dedicated followers of Project Runway to dress up as their favorite contestants, post pictures, and even meet up for viewing parties. For Top Chef, viewers who want to participate even more can compete in virtual competitions on their mobile phones. The channel also solicits feeback from its most active fans, called "Influentials," through its website.

Other media - cookbooks - utensils - festivals + tours - sattelite radio station