Bravo Media Expands 'Watch What Happens: Live' to Five Nights a Week

Bravo Media's buzzy, interactive talk show, "Watch What Happens: Live" is expanding to five nights of original episodes making it the only live daily show in all of late night television. Hosted by Bravo executive Andy Cohen, the sixth season will air live every Sunday through Thursday beginning Sunday, January 8th at 11:00 pm ET/PT . This past season of "Watch What Happens: Live" was its best ever with double digit growth both on-air and online and the show, now in its fifth season, continues to deliver the highest program engagement of any late night talk show (Nielsen IAG). The show evolved from Cohen's daily narrative blog to a live web series, then catapulted to instant success with its unique format premiering as a weekly show on Bravo in July 2009. For more information, visit www.bravotv.com. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BravoPR.

"Expanding 'Watch What Happens Live' to five nights a week is the natural progression for this hit interactive show, and a testament to Andy's enormous appeal," said Frances Berwick, President of Bravo and Style Media. "It cements Bravo's tentpole in late night with this one-of-a-kind live, relatable and truly unpredictable format."

"In my wildest dreams when I started at Bravo seven years ago, I never imagined that I would end up fulfilling my lifelong dream," said Andy Cohen. "It's the perfect storm -- I get to do the three things I'm most passionate about - producing, developing and hosting for a brand that I love."

Longtime Bravo senior executive Jerry Leo has been upped to Executive Vice President, Program Strategy and Production from his previous position as Senior Vice President, Program Strategy and Acquisitions. Leo's expanded role will include the current slate of originals, from the creative to production operations and management of over 30 series. He oversees the strategic planning of all linear and digital scheduling. He will continue to strategize and direct the programming calendar during all points of its creation and transformation, from the daily scheduling output to long-range planning, including yearly "upfront" strategy. Leo works closely with the research, marketing and creative programming teams to help set goals for current series that best support and extend the brand. As a true student of television, he also heads up the network's pop culture and entertainment trend tracking.

"Bravo is on track to have its sixth consecutive best year ever and Jerry has played an integral role in each year of the network's success. His knowledge of our brand, his many years of expertise and programming instincts will be instrumental to Bravo's continued growth," said Berwick.

In Cohen's new role as Executive Vice President of Development and Talent, he will focus on creating new original content as Bravo builds on its five nights of originals, developing new formats and identifying new 'Bravolebrities.' He will continue to serve as Executive Producer on Top Chef and The Real Housewives franchise.

Go to http://www.bravotv.com/watch-what-happens-live/season-5/videos/the-best-moments-of-watch-what-happens-live for a look back at memorable moments of the past five seasons.

The format for "Watch What Happens: Live" will be a half hour, interactive talk show which will air five nights a week, Sunday through Thursday -- four nights live and one night, live to tape. The show will cover all areas of pop-culture featuring celebrity guests from all genres of entertainment. "Watch What Happens: Live" includes lively debates on everything from the latest Housewives drama to the celebrity making headlines that week and everything else in between. Past guests include Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, Kelly Ripa, Kristen Chenoweth, Jimmy Fallon, Neal Patrick Harris, Patti LaBelle, Liam Neeson and Matthew Broderick. For more information visit www.bravotv.com. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BravoPR. "Watch What Happens: Live" is produced by Embassy Row with Michael Davies serving as Executive Producer.

Cohen began his tenure at Bravo in 2005 as Senior Vice President of Original Programming & Development and since then he has overseen an aggressive slate of unscripted series and specials including - Peabody Award winning Project Runway, Flipping Out, Rachel Zoe Project, The Millionaire Matchmaker, Bethenny Ever After, Queer Eye, Work Out, Being Bobby Brown, Top Design, Make Me a Supermodel, Blow Out and Kathy Griffin My Life On the D-List. Cohen received an Emmy award when Season 6 of Top Chef won the Outstanding Reality Competition Program at the 2010 primetime Emmy awards and has been nominated for nine additional Emmy Awards as Executive Producer of Project Greenlight, Project Runway, Top Chef and Queer Eye. Previously, Cohen was Vice President of Original Programming for TRIO (pop, culture, TV), beginning in July 2000. No stranger to live television, Cohen began his career at the CBS Early Show where he worked as a producer for eight years.

Leo joined Bravo in 2005 as Vice President, Strategic Program Planning & Scheduling and oversaw six consecutive years of ratings growth and helped launch tentpole series to record ratings including the Project Runway seasons 2-5, the Emmy winning Top Chef franchise, Emmy winning Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, The Real Housewives franchise, The Millionaire Matchmaker, Watch What Happens Live, Million Dollar Listing, Rachel Zoe Project, Bethenny Ever After, Flipping Out, Inside The Actor's Studio, and Tabatha's Salon Takeover. Also, during his tenure, he expanded scheduling from two nights to five nights of seamless original programming. Prior to Bravo, Leo held a number of positions at VH1, most recently as Vice President, Program Planning where he led the program strategy for Behind The Music, the I Love the 80s franchise, Divas Live, the 100 Greatest franchise, Storytellers, Pop Up Video and the Celebreality franchise. Prior to that, Leo was at MTV, where he was Manager, Program Planning and Acquisitions. He also worked in MTV's Production and Series Development departments. Leo began his television career at NBC in the Corporate Communications, Prime Time Sales and Entertainment Programming departments.

Bravo is a program service of NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, a division of NBCUniversal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience. Bravo has been an NBCUniversal cable network since December 2002 and was the first television service dedicated to film and the performing arts when it launched in December 1980. For more information visit www.bravotv.com. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BravoPR.

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