Bravo doing remix of 'Real Housewives of New Jersey' table-flipping

Last week, we met up with Andy Cohen, who is Bravo's original programming guy. We talked a bit about, obviously, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," which aired its finale last night. (How classy was it? So classy that there was a cameo by none other than Bernie Kerik!) The notable extra-crazy was Teresa Giudice absolutely freaking out on fellow castmate Danielle Staub; Staub is at the center of outlandish and at least in part true claims about her past and how she was a stripper and may have been an escort and all sorts of other things. (Claims that are serving to propel her into stardom! Gah!)

Cohen promised more more more — some of which airs Thursday. "And by the the way the finale is so good," he said, "and this final supper where the women all get together and Teresa flips the table over? That's so good that we're making kind of a director's cut of that meal. So we're going to do an hour which is 'The Last Supper: The Extended Version,' which I think the fans are going to love." Not only that more, but more! "And we're going to do two parts of the reunion," he promised.

"Good" in Bravo-ese means "insane," right?

— Choire Sicha

So it's true. If you live long enough, you will find a "Real Housewives" to love.

After all the head-shaking, hand-wringing, migraine-plagued years I have spent trying to understand the appeal of "The Real Housewives of Orange County," " New York" and "Atlanta" -- the women are so phony and hateful, the men so bloated and ridiculous, the setups so stupidly obvious -- here come "The Real Housewives of New Jersey." And they are just wonderful.

Maybe it's the accent, that consonant-slurring, vowel-stretching rumble that says there's nothing so terrible it can't be solved with a slap in the head or another dollop of ricotta. Maybe it's the opening: shots of the traffic and freeway signs so reminiscent of "The Sopranos" you find yourself scanning restaurant scenes for Edie Falco. Maybe it's the beefy, slightly sweaty husbands and their dismissive but still loving amusement as the cameras move in.

Or maybe it's just that the women, two of them sisters married to brothers, their sister-in-law, their nice friend and New Jersey's own Cruella de Vil are actually recognizable as human beings, even with their wads of cash and strange relationship with eyeliner.

Read more Best 'Real Housewives' yet?

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

As a mad scientist remakes a dead lover from her remnants or a man marries a replica of his first wife, so Bravo -- the network "Project Runway" left for Lifetime -- has created a new series in the image of the departed old. “The Fashion Show” debuts tonight, in advance of the overdue “Runway” Season 6, the better to attract that show's waiting viewers.

Though the fair thing would be to judge it entirely on its own merits, that isn't really possible, given that "The Fashion Show" is as near a knock-off of "Runway" as Bravo could dare without paying the lawyers again.

They have essentially re-accessorized the earlier show while leaving its basic elements intact: Small challenge. Elimination challenge. Elimination. Repeat weekly until won. (Of course, this also describes a dozen other shows now running.) Its good points are nearly all repeated from "Runway," while its faults are rooted in an attempt to seem different. There are perhaps too many additional features and segments and judges here, getting in the way of the story. The show is, basically, overdressed.

Read more Review: 'The Fashion Show' on Bravo

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

TV industry watchers have long known that "The Fashion Show" is Bravo's replacement for "Project Runway."

With Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum and the gang en route to Lifetime, "The Fashion Show" team was left to explain to a room of reporters at NBC's summer press day how their series was not simply a copy cat.

"It's more competitive," host-judge Isaac Mizrahi said. Like "Top Chef," each episode of "The Fashion Show" will consist of both a mini challenge and an elimination one. The latter will be a "big set piece fashion show that takes place in front of an audience."

The winner each week will also have their winning garment manufactured and sold on BravoTV.com.

And, "America votes for the final winner," added host-judge Kelly Rowland.

Anything else?

"It's all taken up a few notches," added IMG senior vice president of fashion Fern Mallis.

To be sure, "The Fashion Show" covers the same ground: Fifteen designers compete to have their designs sold in the retail market and win a $125,000. The real question is if Mizrahi and Rowland can, as Gunn would say, "make it work."

"The Fashion Show" premieres May 7 at 10 p.m. on Bravo.

-- Denise Martin

Photo: NBC

Page Six this morning claims that NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker and his boss, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt held a "top-secret meeting" on an unnamed date with some CNBC on-air staff. The purpose? According to one person "familiar" with the meeting (which does not necessarily mean "in attendance"), concerns were raised by the execs that CNBC had become too "anti-Obama." While this meeting may or may not have had such an agenda (CNBC's press people denied it entirely), what is clear is that management is working harder than ever to define and differentiate -- and, along the way, thereby recession-proof -- the individual networks under the NBC Uni umbrella.

This certainly goes for CNBC, and even NBC, as Scott Collins wrote Wednesday: "In recent days a bit of life has stirred in the old peacock." With Jeff Gaspin's arm of Uni television -- primarily USA and SciFi -- settled and rebranded and quite profitable, the rest of the portfolio is now being similarly brought in line. NBC Uni has "a laser focus on the audience to which we speak for each of those five brands," said Lauren Zalaznick this week, referring to the products she oversees in the "women and lifestyle" category, particularly Bravo and Oxygen. "They're very distinct -- we blend them and bridge them when it suits the consumer, or the advertiser. We separate them when we need to make a very clear statement and we send them off in very innovative directions to keep them distinct and keep them strong."

Zalaznick also said she was "very proud" of an article that recently ran in the New York Times that touted Bravo's product placements. (Sorry, brand extensions!) Even though this is just the beginning of how TV will interact with advertising, already product integration into programming may extend too far for some viewers. (Update: The preceding sentence was clarified to distinguish between brand extensions and on-air advertising integration.) Doree Shafrir, a reporter at the New York Observer, Twittered this morning, after watching Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York" last night, that she "felt like I was watching a Zarin Fabrics commercial" because the "Bravo product placement factory was in overdrive."

In any event, these dual and complementary schemes -- integrating advertising opportunities more deeply into TV and online media, while also sending a clear message to advertisers that highly segmented demographics are easily targetable at will -- are clearly now the primary strategy focus for NBC Uni execs. For now, this can only be less true at CNBC and MSNBC, a less sexy market for advertisers than "lifestyle" -- and where the primary strategy, exemplified by Rachel Maddow, seems to be that old Tina Brown formula: Eyeballs follow the buzz. Consider the numbers from last November: Maddow was pulling in 672,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo; meanwhile, the premiere of "Top Chef" that same month did 1.87 million viewers in the 18-49 demo alone -- a number which just about matched Maddow's total average viewership that month.

Over the last two days, a relaxed but watchful Zucker has been in front-row attendance at both Bravo's upfront presentation on Tuesday morning and at Oxygen's on Wednesday. The young Oxygen General Manager Jason Klarman, now only 15 months into his job, seemed so relieved when his upfront presentation went off without major hitches that, afterward, he seemed as giddy as a man who'd just climbed a mountain. The big boss drifted away, apparently satisfied. When I asked Zucker why he had come down from 30 Rock to appear at both upfronts, Zucker merely said: "Why not?"

-- Choire Sicha

This morning, Bravo had its upfront presentation at the Russian Tea Room in New York. (Why?) It has shows, shows, shows! This is all of them.

New

1. "The Fashion Show"
Airs May 7. Hosted by Isaac Mizrahi with Kelly Rowland, "Fashion Show" basically does a finale of "Project Runway" every week, removing all that odious waiting and backstabbing! The punchline is interactivity in that viewers choose the best designer for each challenge.

2. "Top Chef Masters"
The spin-off brings in expert chefs and makes them cook under difficult conditions, such as doing dinner for 60 in a college dorm room. Noted food critic and current underemployed person Gael Greene is a judge!

3. "Launch My Line" (formerly known as "Celebrity Sew-Off!")
This matches "notables" with designers to make clothes. It is hosted and/or judged or something by Dan and Dean Caten, the sort of silver fox, hot Canadian twin designers. Andy Cohen, Bravo exec and chief blogger, referred to them as "pocket-sized identical twins."

4. "American Artist"
At last, the Magical Elves + Sarah Jessica Parker artist competition show will air! This is a good thing.

5. "NYC Prep"
We saw a clip of this real-world "Gossip Girl" show thing. It will do well, probably. It is about young people eating in restaurants and their bad table manners. Also it is about how teenage boys like to get with girls.

6. "Miami Social"
What's to say? This is about seven friends in South Beach, because Bravo execs kept hearing that everyone missed the TV show "Friends." (When did they hear that? The late '90s?) It is the most vapid, foul, awful, self-satisfied group of people ever assembled in the entire world, and it will be a smashing success, even though it is insanely out of touch with the present moment, i.e., the massive, crippling recession and how people actually don't spend all their time poolside on hotel roofs drinking and being catty and having break-ups and post-break-up sex. These people are just unspeakably God-awful.

7. "Chef Academy"
Somewhat inexplicable. This actually seems to be a cooking show, in which a rather good-looking French chef teaches young cooks how to cook things. He is very personable but he is actually frequently subtitled because his French accent is so strong and because everyone thinks Americans are stupid (see above!) and can't understand an actual French accent.

8. "Design Sixx"
This is a show about a husband-wife team who had six (since filming, seven!) children and move into places that they are renovating and designing. I guess it is like "Flipping Out" for the Park Slope set?

9. "Double Exposure"
This is a show about two horrible, awful people who take photographs. They used to be a couple but they split up and they bicker unprofessionally on set and are just awful, terrible, rude people. Why anyone would want to watch them is beyond me. (This means big ratings!)

10. "Kell On Earth"
Already, in all seriousness, this is the greatest reality show in the history of reality shows. This show is just about fashion publicist Kellly Cutrone, of "Hills" fame, riding roughshod over New York and being a totally domineering, New Age-wonderful crazy person. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Is a real-life “Gossip Girl” website next?

Taking a cue from the CW’s successful drama, Bravo has ordered the similarly prep school-set documentary series “NYC Prep.” The show will premiere Tuesday, June 16 and take over the Tuesday at 10 p.m. time slot currently occupied by “The Real Housewives’” franchise.

Similar to the book series-turned-TV show, “NYC Prep” will follow six high school students who are “firmly entrenched in Manhattan’s social circle,” said Bravo executive vice president and general manager Frances Berwick.

The programming move follows many successful docu-series based on fictional TV hits, such as “Laguna Beach” and “The O.C.” and Bravo’s own “The Real Housewives” franchise, loosely based on “Desperate Housewives.”

 “Bravo continues to intrigue audiences with real-life depictions of relatable characters who live in exclusive worlds,” Berwick said.

 “NYC Prep” is produced by Stone & Company Entertainment, which also produces the Bravo program “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.”

-- Kate Stanhope

Related:

'Gossip Girl' Leighton Meester's music video. You know you love it. XOXO
'Gossip' Girl: What goes around...
'Gossip Girl': What's old is new

Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC Universal

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

Best 'Real Housewives' yet?

So it's true. If you live long enough, you will find a "Real Housewives" to love.

After all the head-shaking, hand-wringing, migraine-plagued years I have spent trying to understand the appeal of "The Real Housewives of Orange County," " New York" and "Atlanta" -- the women are so phony and hateful, the men so bloated and ridiculous, the setups so stupidly obvious -- here come "The Real Housewives of New Jersey." And they are just wonderful.

Maybe it's the accent, that consonant-slurring, vowel-stretching rumble that says there's nothing so terrible it can't be solved with a slap in the head or another dollop of ricotta. Maybe it's the opening: shots of the traffic and freeway signs so reminiscent of "The Sopranos" you find yourself scanning restaurant scenes for Edie Falco. Maybe it's the beefy, slightly sweaty husbands and their dismissive but still loving amusement as the cameras move in.

Or maybe it's just that the women, two of them sisters married to brothers, their sister-in-law, their nice friend and New Jersey's own Cruella de Vil are actually recognizable as human beings, even with their wads of cash and strange relationship with eyeliner.

Read more Best 'Real Housewives' yet?

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

As a mad scientist remakes a dead lover from her remnants or a man marries a replica of his first wife, so Bravo -- the network "Project Runway" left for Lifetime -- has created a new series in the image of the departed old. “The Fashion Show” debuts tonight, in advance of the overdue “Runway” Season 6, the better to attract that show's waiting viewers.

Though the fair thing would be to judge it entirely on its own merits, that isn't really possible, given that "The Fashion Show" is as near a knock-off of "Runway" as Bravo could dare without paying the lawyers again.

They have essentially re-accessorized the earlier show while leaving its basic elements intact: Small challenge. Elimination challenge. Elimination. Repeat weekly until won. (Of course, this also describes a dozen other shows now running.) Its good points are nearly all repeated from "Runway," while its faults are rooted in an attempt to seem different. There are perhaps too many additional features and segments and judges here, getting in the way of the story. The show is, basically, overdressed.

Read more Review: 'The Fashion Show' on Bravo

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

TV industry watchers have long known that "The Fashion Show" is Bravo's replacement for "Project Runway."

With Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum and the gang en route to Lifetime, "The Fashion Show" team was left to explain to a room of reporters at NBC's summer press day how their series was not simply a copy cat.

"It's more competitive," host-judge Isaac Mizrahi said. Like "Top Chef," each episode of "The Fashion Show" will consist of both a mini challenge and an elimination one. The latter will be a "big set piece fashion show that takes place in front of an audience."

The winner each week will also have their winning garment manufactured and sold on BravoTV.com.

And, "America votes for the final winner," added host-judge Kelly Rowland.

Anything else?

"It's all taken up a few notches," added IMG senior vice president of fashion Fern Mallis.

To be sure, "The Fashion Show" covers the same ground: Fifteen designers compete to have their designs sold in the retail market and win a $125,000. The real question is if Mizrahi and Rowland can, as Gunn would say, "make it work."

"The Fashion Show" premieres May 7 at 10 p.m. on Bravo.

-- Denise Martin

Photo: NBC

Page Six this morning claims that NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker and his boss, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt held a "top-secret meeting" on an unnamed date with some CNBC on-air staff. The purpose? According to one person "familiar" with the meeting (which does not necessarily mean "in attendance"), concerns were raised by the execs that CNBC had become too "anti-Obama." While this meeting may or may not have had such an agenda (CNBC's press people denied it entirely), what is clear is that management is working harder than ever to define and differentiate -- and, along the way, thereby recession-proof -- the individual networks under the NBC Uni umbrella.

This certainly goes for CNBC, and even NBC, as Scott Collins wrote Wednesday: "In recent days a bit of life has stirred in the old peacock." With Jeff Gaspin's arm of Uni television -- primarily USA and SciFi -- settled and rebranded and quite profitable, the rest of the portfolio is now being similarly brought in line. NBC Uni has "a laser focus on the audience to which we speak for each of those five brands," said Lauren Zalaznick this week, referring to the products she oversees in the "women and lifestyle" category, particularly Bravo and Oxygen. "They're very distinct -- we blend them and bridge them when it suits the consumer, or the advertiser. We separate them when we need to make a very clear statement and we send them off in very innovative directions to keep them distinct and keep them strong."

Zalaznick also said she was "very proud" of an article that recently ran in the New York Times that touted Bravo's product placements. (Sorry, brand extensions!) Even though this is just the beginning of how TV will interact with advertising, already product integration into programming may extend too far for some viewers. (Update: The preceding sentence was clarified to distinguish between brand extensions and on-air advertising integration.) Doree Shafrir, a reporter at the New York Observer, Twittered this morning, after watching Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York" last night, that she "felt like I was watching a Zarin Fabrics commercial" because the "Bravo product placement factory was in overdrive."

In any event, these dual and complementary schemes -- integrating advertising opportunities more deeply into TV and online media, while also sending a clear message to advertisers that highly segmented demographics are easily targetable at will -- are clearly now the primary strategy focus for NBC Uni execs. For now, this can only be less true at CNBC and MSNBC, a less sexy market for advertisers than "lifestyle" -- and where the primary strategy, exemplified by Rachel Maddow, seems to be that old Tina Brown formula: Eyeballs follow the buzz. Consider the numbers from last November: Maddow was pulling in 672,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo; meanwhile, the premiere of "Top Chef" that same month did 1.87 million viewers in the 18-49 demo alone -- a number which just about matched Maddow's total average viewership that month.

Over the last two days, a relaxed but watchful Zucker has been in front-row attendance at both Bravo's upfront presentation on Tuesday morning and at Oxygen's on Wednesday. The young Oxygen General Manager Jason Klarman, now only 15 months into his job, seemed so relieved when his upfront presentation went off without major hitches that, afterward, he seemed as giddy as a man who'd just climbed a mountain. The big boss drifted away, apparently satisfied. When I asked Zucker why he had come down from 30 Rock to appear at both upfronts, Zucker merely said: "Why not?"

-- Choire Sicha

This morning, Bravo had its upfront presentation at the Russian Tea Room in New York. (Why?) It has shows, shows, shows! This is all of them.

New

1. "The Fashion Show"
Airs May 7. Hosted by Isaac Mizrahi with Kelly Rowland, "Fashion Show" basically does a finale of "Project Runway" every week, removing all that odious waiting and backstabbing! The punchline is interactivity in that viewers choose the best designer for each challenge.

2. "Top Chef Masters"
The spin-off brings in expert chefs and makes them cook under difficult conditions, such as doing dinner for 60 in a college dorm room. Noted food critic and current underemployed person Gael Greene is a judge!

3. "Launch My Line" (formerly known as "Celebrity Sew-Off!")
This matches "notables" with designers to make clothes. It is hosted and/or judged or something by Dan and Dean Caten, the sort of silver fox, hot Canadian twin designers. Andy Cohen, Bravo exec and chief blogger, referred to them as "pocket-sized identical twins."

4. "American Artist"
At last, the Magical Elves + Sarah Jessica Parker artist competition show will air! This is a good thing.

5. "NYC Prep"
We saw a clip of this real-world "Gossip Girl" show thing. It will do well, probably. It is about young people eating in restaurants and their bad table manners. Also it is about how teenage boys like to get with girls.

6. "Miami Social"
What's to say? This is about seven friends in South Beach, because Bravo execs kept hearing that everyone missed the TV show "Friends." (When did they hear that? The late '90s?) It is the most vapid, foul, awful, self-satisfied group of people ever assembled in the entire world, and it will be a smashing success, even though it is insanely out of touch with the present moment, i.e., the massive, crippling recession and how people actually don't spend all their time poolside on hotel roofs drinking and being catty and having break-ups and post-break-up sex. These people are just unspeakably God-awful.

7. "Chef Academy"
Somewhat inexplicable. This actually seems to be a cooking show, in which a rather good-looking French chef teaches young cooks how to cook things. He is very personable but he is actually frequently subtitled because his French accent is so strong and because everyone thinks Americans are stupid (see above!) and can't understand an actual French accent.

8. "Design Sixx"
This is a show about a husband-wife team who had six (since filming, seven!) children and move into places that they are renovating and designing. I guess it is like "Flipping Out" for the Park Slope set?

9. "Double Exposure"
This is a show about two horrible, awful people who take photographs. They used to be a couple but they split up and they bicker unprofessionally on set and are just awful, terrible, rude people. Why anyone would want to watch them is beyond me. (This means big ratings!)

10. "Kell On Earth"
Already, in all seriousness, this is the greatest reality show in the history of reality shows. This show is just about fashion publicist Kellly Cutrone, of "Hills" fame, riding roughshod over New York and being a totally domineering, New Age-wonderful crazy person. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Is a real-life “Gossip Girl” website next?

Taking a cue from the CW’s successful drama, Bravo has ordered the similarly prep school-set documentary series “NYC Prep.” The show will premiere Tuesday, June 16 and take over the Tuesday at 10 p.m. time slot currently occupied by “The Real Housewives’” franchise.

Similar to the book series-turned-TV show, “NYC Prep” will follow six high school students who are “firmly entrenched in Manhattan’s social circle,” said Bravo executive vice president and general manager Frances Berwick.

The programming move follows many successful docu-series based on fictional TV hits, such as “Laguna Beach” and “The O.C.” and Bravo’s own “The Real Housewives” franchise, loosely based on “Desperate Housewives.”

 “Bravo continues to intrigue audiences with real-life depictions of relatable characters who live in exclusive worlds,” Berwick said.

 “NYC Prep” is produced by Stone & Company Entertainment, which also produces the Bravo program “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.”

-- Kate Stanhope

Related:

'Gossip Girl' Leighton Meester's music video. You know you love it. XOXO
'Gossip' Girl: What goes around...
'Gossip Girl': What's old is new

Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC Universal

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

Review: 'The Fashion Show' on Bravo

As a mad scientist remakes a dead lover from her remnants or a man marries a replica of his first wife, so Bravo -- the network "Project Runway" left for Lifetime -- has created a new series in the image of the departed old. “The Fashion Show” debuts tonight, in advance of the overdue “Runway” Season 6, the better to attract that show's waiting viewers.

Though the fair thing would be to judge it entirely on its own merits, that isn't really possible, given that "The Fashion Show" is as near a knock-off of "Runway" as Bravo could dare without paying the lawyers again.

They have essentially re-accessorized the earlier show while leaving its basic elements intact: Small challenge. Elimination challenge. Elimination. Repeat weekly until won. (Of course, this also describes a dozen other shows now running.) Its good points are nearly all repeated from "Runway," while its faults are rooted in an attempt to seem different. There are perhaps too many additional features and segments and judges here, getting in the way of the story. The show is, basically, overdressed.

Read more Review: 'The Fashion Show' on Bravo

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

TV industry watchers have long known that "The Fashion Show" is Bravo's replacement for "Project Runway."

With Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum and the gang en route to Lifetime, "The Fashion Show" team was left to explain to a room of reporters at NBC's summer press day how their series was not simply a copy cat.

"It's more competitive," host-judge Isaac Mizrahi said. Like "Top Chef," each episode of "The Fashion Show" will consist of both a mini challenge and an elimination one. The latter will be a "big set piece fashion show that takes place in front of an audience."

The winner each week will also have their winning garment manufactured and sold on BravoTV.com.

And, "America votes for the final winner," added host-judge Kelly Rowland.

Anything else?

"It's all taken up a few notches," added IMG senior vice president of fashion Fern Mallis.

To be sure, "The Fashion Show" covers the same ground: Fifteen designers compete to have their designs sold in the retail market and win a $125,000. The real question is if Mizrahi and Rowland can, as Gunn would say, "make it work."

"The Fashion Show" premieres May 7 at 10 p.m. on Bravo.

-- Denise Martin

Photo: NBC

Page Six this morning claims that NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker and his boss, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt held a "top-secret meeting" on an unnamed date with some CNBC on-air staff. The purpose? According to one person "familiar" with the meeting (which does not necessarily mean "in attendance"), concerns were raised by the execs that CNBC had become too "anti-Obama." While this meeting may or may not have had such an agenda (CNBC's press people denied it entirely), what is clear is that management is working harder than ever to define and differentiate -- and, along the way, thereby recession-proof -- the individual networks under the NBC Uni umbrella.

This certainly goes for CNBC, and even NBC, as Scott Collins wrote Wednesday: "In recent days a bit of life has stirred in the old peacock." With Jeff Gaspin's arm of Uni television -- primarily USA and SciFi -- settled and rebranded and quite profitable, the rest of the portfolio is now being similarly brought in line. NBC Uni has "a laser focus on the audience to which we speak for each of those five brands," said Lauren Zalaznick this week, referring to the products she oversees in the "women and lifestyle" category, particularly Bravo and Oxygen. "They're very distinct -- we blend them and bridge them when it suits the consumer, or the advertiser. We separate them when we need to make a very clear statement and we send them off in very innovative directions to keep them distinct and keep them strong."

Zalaznick also said she was "very proud" of an article that recently ran in the New York Times that touted Bravo's product placements. (Sorry, brand extensions!) Even though this is just the beginning of how TV will interact with advertising, already product integration into programming may extend too far for some viewers. (Update: The preceding sentence was clarified to distinguish between brand extensions and on-air advertising integration.) Doree Shafrir, a reporter at the New York Observer, Twittered this morning, after watching Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York" last night, that she "felt like I was watching a Zarin Fabrics commercial" because the "Bravo product placement factory was in overdrive."

In any event, these dual and complementary schemes -- integrating advertising opportunities more deeply into TV and online media, while also sending a clear message to advertisers that highly segmented demographics are easily targetable at will -- are clearly now the primary strategy focus for NBC Uni execs. For now, this can only be less true at CNBC and MSNBC, a less sexy market for advertisers than "lifestyle" -- and where the primary strategy, exemplified by Rachel Maddow, seems to be that old Tina Brown formula: Eyeballs follow the buzz. Consider the numbers from last November: Maddow was pulling in 672,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo; meanwhile, the premiere of "Top Chef" that same month did 1.87 million viewers in the 18-49 demo alone -- a number which just about matched Maddow's total average viewership that month.

Over the last two days, a relaxed but watchful Zucker has been in front-row attendance at both Bravo's upfront presentation on Tuesday morning and at Oxygen's on Wednesday. The young Oxygen General Manager Jason Klarman, now only 15 months into his job, seemed so relieved when his upfront presentation went off without major hitches that, afterward, he seemed as giddy as a man who'd just climbed a mountain. The big boss drifted away, apparently satisfied. When I asked Zucker why he had come down from 30 Rock to appear at both upfronts, Zucker merely said: "Why not?"

-- Choire Sicha

This morning, Bravo had its upfront presentation at the Russian Tea Room in New York. (Why?) It has shows, shows, shows! This is all of them.

New

1. "The Fashion Show"
Airs May 7. Hosted by Isaac Mizrahi with Kelly Rowland, "Fashion Show" basically does a finale of "Project Runway" every week, removing all that odious waiting and backstabbing! The punchline is interactivity in that viewers choose the best designer for each challenge.

2. "Top Chef Masters"
The spin-off brings in expert chefs and makes them cook under difficult conditions, such as doing dinner for 60 in a college dorm room. Noted food critic and current underemployed person Gael Greene is a judge!

3. "Launch My Line" (formerly known as "Celebrity Sew-Off!")
This matches "notables" with designers to make clothes. It is hosted and/or judged or something by Dan and Dean Caten, the sort of silver fox, hot Canadian twin designers. Andy Cohen, Bravo exec and chief blogger, referred to them as "pocket-sized identical twins."

4. "American Artist"
At last, the Magical Elves + Sarah Jessica Parker artist competition show will air! This is a good thing.

5. "NYC Prep"
We saw a clip of this real-world "Gossip Girl" show thing. It will do well, probably. It is about young people eating in restaurants and their bad table manners. Also it is about how teenage boys like to get with girls.

6. "Miami Social"
What's to say? This is about seven friends in South Beach, because Bravo execs kept hearing that everyone missed the TV show "Friends." (When did they hear that? The late '90s?) It is the most vapid, foul, awful, self-satisfied group of people ever assembled in the entire world, and it will be a smashing success, even though it is insanely out of touch with the present moment, i.e., the massive, crippling recession and how people actually don't spend all their time poolside on hotel roofs drinking and being catty and having break-ups and post-break-up sex. These people are just unspeakably God-awful.

7. "Chef Academy"
Somewhat inexplicable. This actually seems to be a cooking show, in which a rather good-looking French chef teaches young cooks how to cook things. He is very personable but he is actually frequently subtitled because his French accent is so strong and because everyone thinks Americans are stupid (see above!) and can't understand an actual French accent.

8. "Design Sixx"
This is a show about a husband-wife team who had six (since filming, seven!) children and move into places that they are renovating and designing. I guess it is like "Flipping Out" for the Park Slope set?

9. "Double Exposure"
This is a show about two horrible, awful people who take photographs. They used to be a couple but they split up and they bicker unprofessionally on set and are just awful, terrible, rude people. Why anyone would want to watch them is beyond me. (This means big ratings!)

10. "Kell On Earth"
Already, in all seriousness, this is the greatest reality show in the history of reality shows. This show is just about fashion publicist Kellly Cutrone, of "Hills" fame, riding roughshod over New York and being a totally domineering, New Age-wonderful crazy person. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Is a real-life “Gossip Girl” website next?

Taking a cue from the CW’s successful drama, Bravo has ordered the similarly prep school-set documentary series “NYC Prep.” The show will premiere Tuesday, June 16 and take over the Tuesday at 10 p.m. time slot currently occupied by “The Real Housewives’” franchise.

Similar to the book series-turned-TV show, “NYC Prep” will follow six high school students who are “firmly entrenched in Manhattan’s social circle,” said Bravo executive vice president and general manager Frances Berwick.

The programming move follows many successful docu-series based on fictional TV hits, such as “Laguna Beach” and “The O.C.” and Bravo’s own “The Real Housewives” franchise, loosely based on “Desperate Housewives.”

 “Bravo continues to intrigue audiences with real-life depictions of relatable characters who live in exclusive worlds,” Berwick said.

 “NYC Prep” is produced by Stone & Company Entertainment, which also produces the Bravo program “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.”

-- Kate Stanhope

Related:

'Gossip Girl' Leighton Meester's music video. You know you love it. XOXO
'Gossip' Girl: What goes around...
'Gossip Girl': What's old is new

Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC Universal

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

'The Fashion Show' is no 'Project Runway'

TV industry watchers have long known that "The Fashion Show" is Bravo's replacement for "Project Runway."

With Tim Gunn, Heidi Klum and the gang en route to Lifetime, "The Fashion Show" team was left to explain to a room of reporters at NBC's summer press day how their series was not simply a copy cat.

"It's more competitive," host-judge Isaac Mizrahi said. Like "Top Chef," each episode of "The Fashion Show" will consist of both a mini challenge and an elimination one. The latter will be a "big set piece fashion show that takes place in front of an audience."

The winner each week will also have their winning garment manufactured and sold on BravoTV.com.

And, "America votes for the final winner," added host-judge Kelly Rowland.

Anything else?

"It's all taken up a few notches," added IMG senior vice president of fashion Fern Mallis.

To be sure, "The Fashion Show" covers the same ground: Fifteen designers compete to have their designs sold in the retail market and win a $125,000. The real question is if Mizrahi and Rowland can, as Gunn would say, "make it work."

"The Fashion Show" premieres May 7 at 10 p.m. on Bravo.

-- Denise Martin

Photo: NBC

Page Six this morning claims that NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker and his boss, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt held a "top-secret meeting" on an unnamed date with some CNBC on-air staff. The purpose? According to one person "familiar" with the meeting (which does not necessarily mean "in attendance"), concerns were raised by the execs that CNBC had become too "anti-Obama." While this meeting may or may not have had such an agenda (CNBC's press people denied it entirely), what is clear is that management is working harder than ever to define and differentiate -- and, along the way, thereby recession-proof -- the individual networks under the NBC Uni umbrella.

This certainly goes for CNBC, and even NBC, as Scott Collins wrote Wednesday: "In recent days a bit of life has stirred in the old peacock." With Jeff Gaspin's arm of Uni television -- primarily USA and SciFi -- settled and rebranded and quite profitable, the rest of the portfolio is now being similarly brought in line. NBC Uni has "a laser focus on the audience to which we speak for each of those five brands," said Lauren Zalaznick this week, referring to the products she oversees in the "women and lifestyle" category, particularly Bravo and Oxygen. "They're very distinct -- we blend them and bridge them when it suits the consumer, or the advertiser. We separate them when we need to make a very clear statement and we send them off in very innovative directions to keep them distinct and keep them strong."

Zalaznick also said she was "very proud" of an article that recently ran in the New York Times that touted Bravo's product placements. (Sorry, brand extensions!) Even though this is just the beginning of how TV will interact with advertising, already product integration into programming may extend too far for some viewers. (Update: The preceding sentence was clarified to distinguish between brand extensions and on-air advertising integration.) Doree Shafrir, a reporter at the New York Observer, Twittered this morning, after watching Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York" last night, that she "felt like I was watching a Zarin Fabrics commercial" because the "Bravo product placement factory was in overdrive."

In any event, these dual and complementary schemes -- integrating advertising opportunities more deeply into TV and online media, while also sending a clear message to advertisers that highly segmented demographics are easily targetable at will -- are clearly now the primary strategy focus for NBC Uni execs. For now, this can only be less true at CNBC and MSNBC, a less sexy market for advertisers than "lifestyle" -- and where the primary strategy, exemplified by Rachel Maddow, seems to be that old Tina Brown formula: Eyeballs follow the buzz. Consider the numbers from last November: Maddow was pulling in 672,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo; meanwhile, the premiere of "Top Chef" that same month did 1.87 million viewers in the 18-49 demo alone -- a number which just about matched Maddow's total average viewership that month.

Over the last two days, a relaxed but watchful Zucker has been in front-row attendance at both Bravo's upfront presentation on Tuesday morning and at Oxygen's on Wednesday. The young Oxygen General Manager Jason Klarman, now only 15 months into his job, seemed so relieved when his upfront presentation went off without major hitches that, afterward, he seemed as giddy as a man who'd just climbed a mountain. The big boss drifted away, apparently satisfied. When I asked Zucker why he had come down from 30 Rock to appear at both upfronts, Zucker merely said: "Why not?"

-- Choire Sicha

This morning, Bravo had its upfront presentation at the Russian Tea Room in New York. (Why?) It has shows, shows, shows! This is all of them.

New

1. "The Fashion Show"
Airs May 7. Hosted by Isaac Mizrahi with Kelly Rowland, "Fashion Show" basically does a finale of "Project Runway" every week, removing all that odious waiting and backstabbing! The punchline is interactivity in that viewers choose the best designer for each challenge.

2. "Top Chef Masters"
The spin-off brings in expert chefs and makes them cook under difficult conditions, such as doing dinner for 60 in a college dorm room. Noted food critic and current underemployed person Gael Greene is a judge!

3. "Launch My Line" (formerly known as "Celebrity Sew-Off!")
This matches "notables" with designers to make clothes. It is hosted and/or judged or something by Dan and Dean Caten, the sort of silver fox, hot Canadian twin designers. Andy Cohen, Bravo exec and chief blogger, referred to them as "pocket-sized identical twins."

4. "American Artist"
At last, the Magical Elves + Sarah Jessica Parker artist competition show will air! This is a good thing.

5. "NYC Prep"
We saw a clip of this real-world "Gossip Girl" show thing. It will do well, probably. It is about young people eating in restaurants and their bad table manners. Also it is about how teenage boys like to get with girls.

6. "Miami Social"
What's to say? This is about seven friends in South Beach, because Bravo execs kept hearing that everyone missed the TV show "Friends." (When did they hear that? The late '90s?) It is the most vapid, foul, awful, self-satisfied group of people ever assembled in the entire world, and it will be a smashing success, even though it is insanely out of touch with the present moment, i.e., the massive, crippling recession and how people actually don't spend all their time poolside on hotel roofs drinking and being catty and having break-ups and post-break-up sex. These people are just unspeakably God-awful.

7. "Chef Academy"
Somewhat inexplicable. This actually seems to be a cooking show, in which a rather good-looking French chef teaches young cooks how to cook things. He is very personable but he is actually frequently subtitled because his French accent is so strong and because everyone thinks Americans are stupid (see above!) and can't understand an actual French accent.

8. "Design Sixx"
This is a show about a husband-wife team who had six (since filming, seven!) children and move into places that they are renovating and designing. I guess it is like "Flipping Out" for the Park Slope set?

9. "Double Exposure"
This is a show about two horrible, awful people who take photographs. They used to be a couple but they split up and they bicker unprofessionally on set and are just awful, terrible, rude people. Why anyone would want to watch them is beyond me. (This means big ratings!)

10. "Kell On Earth"
Already, in all seriousness, this is the greatest reality show in the history of reality shows. This show is just about fashion publicist Kellly Cutrone, of "Hills" fame, riding roughshod over New York and being a totally domineering, New Age-wonderful crazy person. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Is a real-life “Gossip Girl” website next?

Taking a cue from the CW’s successful drama, Bravo has ordered the similarly prep school-set documentary series “NYC Prep.” The show will premiere Tuesday, June 16 and take over the Tuesday at 10 p.m. time slot currently occupied by “The Real Housewives’” franchise.

Similar to the book series-turned-TV show, “NYC Prep” will follow six high school students who are “firmly entrenched in Manhattan’s social circle,” said Bravo executive vice president and general manager Frances Berwick.

The programming move follows many successful docu-series based on fictional TV hits, such as “Laguna Beach” and “The O.C.” and Bravo’s own “The Real Housewives” franchise, loosely based on “Desperate Housewives.”

 “Bravo continues to intrigue audiences with real-life depictions of relatable characters who live in exclusive worlds,” Berwick said.

 “NYC Prep” is produced by Stone & Company Entertainment, which also produces the Bravo program “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.”

-- Kate Stanhope

Related:

'Gossip Girl' Leighton Meester's music video. You know you love it. XOXO
'Gossip' Girl: What goes around...
'Gossip Girl': What's old is new

Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC Universal

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

NBC Universal's television strategy: It's all in the brand differentiation (and product integration)

Page Six this morning claims that NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker and his boss, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt held a "top-secret meeting" on an unnamed date with some CNBC on-air staff. The purpose? According to one person "familiar" with the meeting (which does not necessarily mean "in attendance"), concerns were raised by the execs that CNBC had become too "anti-Obama." While this meeting may or may not have had such an agenda (CNBC's press people denied it entirely), what is clear is that management is working harder than ever to define and differentiate -- and, along the way, thereby recession-proof -- the individual networks under the NBC Uni umbrella.

This certainly goes for CNBC, and even NBC, as Scott Collins wrote Wednesday: "In recent days a bit of life has stirred in the old peacock." With Jeff Gaspin's arm of Uni television -- primarily USA and SciFi -- settled and rebranded and quite profitable, the rest of the portfolio is now being similarly brought in line. NBC Uni has "a laser focus on the audience to which we speak for each of those five brands," said Lauren Zalaznick this week, referring to the products she oversees in the "women and lifestyle" category, particularly Bravo and Oxygen. "They're very distinct -- we blend them and bridge them when it suits the consumer, or the advertiser. We separate them when we need to make a very clear statement and we send them off in very innovative directions to keep them distinct and keep them strong."

Zalaznick also said she was "very proud" of an article that recently ran in the New York Times that touted Bravo's product placements. (Sorry, brand extensions!) Even though this is just the beginning of how TV will interact with advertising, already product integration into programming may extend too far for some viewers. (Update: The preceding sentence was clarified to distinguish between brand extensions and on-air advertising integration.) Doree Shafrir, a reporter at the New York Observer, Twittered this morning, after watching Bravo's "Real Housewives of New York" last night, that she "felt like I was watching a Zarin Fabrics commercial" because the "Bravo product placement factory was in overdrive."

In any event, these dual and complementary schemes -- integrating advertising opportunities more deeply into TV and online media, while also sending a clear message to advertisers that highly segmented demographics are easily targetable at will -- are clearly now the primary strategy focus for NBC Uni execs. For now, this can only be less true at CNBC and MSNBC, a less sexy market for advertisers than "lifestyle" -- and where the primary strategy, exemplified by Rachel Maddow, seems to be that old Tina Brown formula: Eyeballs follow the buzz. Consider the numbers from last November: Maddow was pulling in 672,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo; meanwhile, the premiere of "Top Chef" that same month did 1.87 million viewers in the 18-49 demo alone -- a number which just about matched Maddow's total average viewership that month.

Over the last two days, a relaxed but watchful Zucker has been in front-row attendance at both Bravo's upfront presentation on Tuesday morning and at Oxygen's on Wednesday. The young Oxygen General Manager Jason Klarman, now only 15 months into his job, seemed so relieved when his upfront presentation went off without major hitches that, afterward, he seemed as giddy as a man who'd just climbed a mountain. The big boss drifted away, apparently satisfied. When I asked Zucker why he had come down from 30 Rock to appear at both upfronts, Zucker merely said: "Why not?"

-- Choire Sicha

This morning, Bravo had its upfront presentation at the Russian Tea Room in New York. (Why?) It has shows, shows, shows! This is all of them.

New

1. "The Fashion Show"
Airs May 7. Hosted by Isaac Mizrahi with Kelly Rowland, "Fashion Show" basically does a finale of "Project Runway" every week, removing all that odious waiting and backstabbing! The punchline is interactivity in that viewers choose the best designer for each challenge.

2. "Top Chef Masters"
The spin-off brings in expert chefs and makes them cook under difficult conditions, such as doing dinner for 60 in a college dorm room. Noted food critic and current underemployed person Gael Greene is a judge!

3. "Launch My Line" (formerly known as "Celebrity Sew-Off!")
This matches "notables" with designers to make clothes. It is hosted and/or judged or something by Dan and Dean Caten, the sort of silver fox, hot Canadian twin designers. Andy Cohen, Bravo exec and chief blogger, referred to them as "pocket-sized identical twins."

4. "American Artist"
At last, the Magical Elves + Sarah Jessica Parker artist competition show will air! This is a good thing.

5. "NYC Prep"
We saw a clip of this real-world "Gossip Girl" show thing. It will do well, probably. It is about young people eating in restaurants and their bad table manners. Also it is about how teenage boys like to get with girls.

6. "Miami Social"
What's to say? This is about seven friends in South Beach, because Bravo execs kept hearing that everyone missed the TV show "Friends." (When did they hear that? The late '90s?) It is the most vapid, foul, awful, self-satisfied group of people ever assembled in the entire world, and it will be a smashing success, even though it is insanely out of touch with the present moment, i.e., the massive, crippling recession and how people actually don't spend all their time poolside on hotel roofs drinking and being catty and having break-ups and post-break-up sex. These people are just unspeakably God-awful.

7. "Chef Academy"
Somewhat inexplicable. This actually seems to be a cooking show, in which a rather good-looking French chef teaches young cooks how to cook things. He is very personable but he is actually frequently subtitled because his French accent is so strong and because everyone thinks Americans are stupid (see above!) and can't understand an actual French accent.

8. "Design Sixx"
This is a show about a husband-wife team who had six (since filming, seven!) children and move into places that they are renovating and designing. I guess it is like "Flipping Out" for the Park Slope set?

9. "Double Exposure"
This is a show about two horrible, awful people who take photographs. They used to be a couple but they split up and they bicker unprofessionally on set and are just awful, terrible, rude people. Why anyone would want to watch them is beyond me. (This means big ratings!)

10. "Kell On Earth"
Already, in all seriousness, this is the greatest reality show in the history of reality shows. This show is just about fashion publicist Kellly Cutrone, of "Hills" fame, riding roughshod over New York and being a totally domineering, New Age-wonderful crazy person. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Is a real-life “Gossip Girl” website next?

Taking a cue from the CW’s successful drama, Bravo has ordered the similarly prep school-set documentary series “NYC Prep.” The show will premiere Tuesday, June 16 and take over the Tuesday at 10 p.m. time slot currently occupied by “The Real Housewives’” franchise.

Similar to the book series-turned-TV show, “NYC Prep” will follow six high school students who are “firmly entrenched in Manhattan’s social circle,” said Bravo executive vice president and general manager Frances Berwick.

The programming move follows many successful docu-series based on fictional TV hits, such as “Laguna Beach” and “The O.C.” and Bravo’s own “The Real Housewives” franchise, loosely based on “Desperate Housewives.”

 “Bravo continues to intrigue audiences with real-life depictions of relatable characters who live in exclusive worlds,” Berwick said.

 “NYC Prep” is produced by Stone & Company Entertainment, which also produces the Bravo program “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.”

-- Kate Stanhope

Related:

'Gossip Girl' Leighton Meester's music video. You know you love it. XOXO
'Gossip' Girl: What goes around...
'Gossip Girl': What's old is new

Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC Universal

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

Bravo's complete schedule, revealed!

This morning, Bravo had its upfront presentation at the Russian Tea Room in New York. (Why?) It has shows, shows, shows! This is all of them.

New

1. "The Fashion Show"
Airs May 7. Hosted by Isaac Mizrahi with Kelly Rowland, "Fashion Show" basically does a finale of "Project Runway" every week, removing all that odious waiting and backstabbing! The punchline is interactivity in that viewers choose the best designer for each challenge.

2. "Top Chef Masters"
The spin-off brings in expert chefs and makes them cook under difficult conditions, such as doing dinner for 60 in a college dorm room. Noted food critic and current underemployed person Gael Greene is a judge!

3. "Launch My Line" (formerly known as "Celebrity Sew-Off!")
This matches "notables" with designers to make clothes. It is hosted and/or judged or something by Dan and Dean Caten, the sort of silver fox, hot Canadian twin designers. Andy Cohen, Bravo exec and chief blogger, referred to them as "pocket-sized identical twins."

4. "American Artist"
At last, the Magical Elves + Sarah Jessica Parker artist competition show will air! This is a good thing.

5. "NYC Prep"
We saw a clip of this real-world "Gossip Girl" show thing. It will do well, probably. It is about young people eating in restaurants and their bad table manners. Also it is about how teenage boys like to get with girls.

6. "Miami Social"
What's to say? This is about seven friends in South Beach, because Bravo execs kept hearing that everyone missed the TV show "Friends." (When did they hear that? The late '90s?) It is the most vapid, foul, awful, self-satisfied group of people ever assembled in the entire world, and it will be a smashing success, even though it is insanely out of touch with the present moment, i.e., the massive, crippling recession and how people actually don't spend all their time poolside on hotel roofs drinking and being catty and having break-ups and post-break-up sex. These people are just unspeakably God-awful.

7. "Chef Academy"
Somewhat inexplicable. This actually seems to be a cooking show, in which a rather good-looking French chef teaches young cooks how to cook things. He is very personable but he is actually frequently subtitled because his French accent is so strong and because everyone thinks Americans are stupid (see above!) and can't understand an actual French accent.

8. "Design Sixx"
This is a show about a husband-wife team who had six (since filming, seven!) children and move into places that they are renovating and designing. I guess it is like "Flipping Out" for the Park Slope set?

9. "Double Exposure"
This is a show about two horrible, awful people who take photographs. They used to be a couple but they split up and they bicker unprofessionally on set and are just awful, terrible, rude people. Why anyone would want to watch them is beyond me. (This means big ratings!)

10. "Kell On Earth"
Already, in all seriousness, this is the greatest reality show in the history of reality shows. This show is just about fashion publicist Kellly Cutrone, of "Hills" fame, riding roughshod over New York and being a totally domineering, New Age-wonderful crazy person. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Is a real-life “Gossip Girl” website next?

Taking a cue from the CW’s successful drama, Bravo has ordered the similarly prep school-set documentary series “NYC Prep.” The show will premiere Tuesday, June 16 and take over the Tuesday at 10 p.m. time slot currently occupied by “The Real Housewives’” franchise.

Similar to the book series-turned-TV show, “NYC Prep” will follow six high school students who are “firmly entrenched in Manhattan’s social circle,” said Bravo executive vice president and general manager Frances Berwick.

The programming move follows many successful docu-series based on fictional TV hits, such as “Laguna Beach” and “The O.C.” and Bravo’s own “The Real Housewives” franchise, loosely based on “Desperate Housewives.”

 “Bravo continues to intrigue audiences with real-life depictions of relatable characters who live in exclusive worlds,” Berwick said.

 “NYC Prep” is produced by Stone & Company Entertainment, which also produces the Bravo program “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.”

-- Kate Stanhope

Related:

'Gossip Girl' Leighton Meester's music video. You know you love it. XOXO
'Gossip' Girl: What goes around...
'Gossip Girl': What's old is new

Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC Universal

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

Bravo orders up real-life 'Gossip Girl' reality series 'NYC Prep'

Is a real-life “Gossip Girl” website next?

Taking a cue from the CW’s successful drama, Bravo has ordered the similarly prep school-set documentary series “NYC Prep.” The show will premiere Tuesday, June 16 and take over the Tuesday at 10 p.m. time slot currently occupied by “The Real Housewives’” franchise.

Similar to the book series-turned-TV show, “NYC Prep” will follow six high school students who are “firmly entrenched in Manhattan’s social circle,” said Bravo executive vice president and general manager Frances Berwick.

The programming move follows many successful docu-series based on fictional TV hits, such as “Laguna Beach” and “The O.C.” and Bravo’s own “The Real Housewives” franchise, loosely based on “Desperate Housewives.”

 “Bravo continues to intrigue audiences with real-life depictions of relatable characters who live in exclusive worlds,” Berwick said.

 “NYC Prep” is produced by Stone & Company Entertainment, which also produces the Bravo program “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.”

-- Kate Stanhope

Related:

'Gossip Girl' Leighton Meester's music video. You know you love it. XOXO
'Gossip' Girl: What goes around...
'Gossip Girl': What's old is new

Photo: Virginia Sherwood / NBC Universal

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

'The Real Housewives of New York City': Meet the new housewife

Kelly Killoren Bensimon has yet to demonstrate why Bravo even bothered adding her to its Real Housewives franchise.

She fits in on paper: She's rich, a former model, the ex-wife of fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon, has two daughters, is a writer-journalist and  zzzzzzzzzz. Oh, excuse me. You see, all that aside, Kelly is a crashing bore.

On the "Real Housewives of New York City," we already have a well-adjusted, leggy former model in LuAnn, and even she has a quirky personality that comes out when it comes to her role as Countess de Lesseps. All the other housewives are genuine characters, whether we're talking about the ambitiously creepy Alex and her metro husband, Simon, mouthy social maven Jill, caustically sarcastic Bethenny or even crazy-eyed Ramona, who never fails to embarrass her daughter.

Read the full interview at Zap2it.

Photo credit: Bravo

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

Exclusive: Bravo sizes up a second season of 'The Rachel Zoe Project'

I die. I die. Our favorite fashionista is coming back.

Bravo tells us exclusively that the network has ordered up a second season of "The Rachel Zoe Project," the behind-the-scenes reality show following Zoe as she styles celebs, keeps the peace between her feuding assistants and goes on mad vintage-store shopping sprees.

Production has not yet begun, but expect new episodes of "Rachel Zoe," produced by Original Media, to air in mid-2009.

No word yet on whether on-and-off-again rivals Brad and Taylor will be back, but as of October, when I last spoke to Zoe, both were still happily employed.

At the time, Zoe thought Taylor was getting "a bad rap" from viewers, who took issue with Taylor talking back to the boss lady. "Taylor's tough, she keeps me focused. She's there to tell me no, because I'm really bad at saying no," Zoe said. "But I need her to do that. I'd be lost without her."

Bravo also will be unveiling several new series on Thursday.

Now all the network needs to do is tell us when "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" comes back and my Christmas wish list will be complete. And that would be, as Zoe might say, "bananas amazing."

-- Denise Martin

Photo credit: Bravo

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)

'The Rachel Zoe Project': Zoe defends 'Rachel Zoe'

She’s not quite over having been called “a pox on humanity” by the New York Times, but Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars, and now a reality TV star herself, says her Bravo series has at least given her haters something to gnaw on.

“The Rachel Zoe Project” has, if nothing else, shown the waifish fashionista, notorious for her tiny frame and for formerly outfitting party girls from Nicole Richie to Lindsay Lohan, to be an ambitious, Starbucks-dependent student of fashion, driven by what seems to be genuine passion. (The season finale is Tuesday at 10 p.m.)

“I let my guard down a lot,” Zoe says. “What you’ve seen on the show is exactly who I am. If you like me, great. If you don’t, great, but at least you understand who I am now.”

And while being called “Raisinface” by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton is something she can let slide, Zoe can’t help defending herself from the more stinging criticisms as she takes stock of the season that was.

Last month, New York Times TV critic Ginia Bellafante blasted the stylist and her show for being the very picture of “mad consumption,” a “downright unseemly” way to be in today’s economic climate. (During one episode this season, Zoe used 20 minutes of rare downtime to raid -- almost literally -- a vintage clothing store in New York; three racks of goodies later, she sighed to her assistant Brad, “I’m scared [of] what just happened.”)

“It was the strangest thing in the world for someone who has never met me to accuse me of making our society superficial,” Zoe says. “Judging the state of society based on me? A ‘pox’? This show is not an effort to solve world issues. It’s a bit of glamour, a bit of an escape.” Escape into Zoe’s world has included VIP seats to New York’s Fashion Week, lunches with top-flight designers like Marc Jacobs, impromptu shopping sprees, assistant head-butting and those now-signature Zoe-isms “I die, I die,” “Getting witch vibes” and “Bananas!” (all of which sub for the more general “awesome.”)

“You never know how you actually sound until you see it on camera,” she says. “Sometimes I’m working with clients that don’t speak English and they’ll ask, ‘What is this bananas?’”

Like “Project Runway,” Zoe’s series has been given the approval of fashion powerhouses from Oscar de la Renta to Diane Von Furstenberg, whose appearances are further proof, Zoe says, that she’s taken seriously in the industry. “The designers who appear on the show know that I’d never do anything scandalous or negative. They wouldn’t work with me otherwise,” she says. “They trust me. I can’t do what I do without them.”

Before production starts on a second season -- “Nothing’s official, but if Bravo asks, I’d love to. I can take it,” she says -- Zoe will continue working on a line of branded merchandise and perhaps begin a second book. Her first, “Style A to Zoe,” is perched at No. 13 on New York Times bestseller list.

-- Denise Martin

(Photo courtesy Bravo)