BRAVO TEAMS UP WITH NBC OLYMPICS TO LAUNCH "BRAVO AT THE OLYMPICS"
BRAVO TEAMS UP WITH NBC OLYMPICS TO LAUNCH "BRAVO AT THE OLYMPICS"
SPONSORABLE ONLINE OLYMPIC-THEMED VIGNETTES TO STREAM ON NBCOLYMPICS.COM
NEW YORK - January 25, 2006 - Bravo has joined forces with NBC Olympics to launch "Bravo at the Olympics," an Olympic-themed vignette series featuring talent from Bravo's critically acclaimed series and new original series. The 90-second to four-minute shorts will feature "Queer Eye'" Fab-Fiver Ted Allen, "Top Chef" host Katie Lee Joel and Chief Chef/Judge Tom Colicchio, and a "Project Runway" take on Olympic-fashion. The vignettes, which will be sold as an ad sales package, will be streamed online on www.nbcolympics.com in conjunction with the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, and will kick off a week prior to the games. The announcement was jointly made today by Lauren Zalaznick, President, Bravo and Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics.
"This is a great opportunity for Bravo to pay tribute to this world sporting event the way Bravo knows best -- through characters who share their point of view about Olympic culture, cuisine and fashion," said Zalaznick. "Anyone, everywhere will be able to log-on and experience the Olympics with a Bravo twist."
"The vignettes take a unique and different look at the Olympics from some of Bravo's most popular stars, while exposing them to the enormous traffic that will visit NBCOlympics.com during the month of February," said Zenkel.
"Bravo at the Olympics" is comprised of varied short topical vignettes pegged to the Torino, Italy region. Two vignettes will be streamed on nbcolympics.com, with a third vignette streamed on BravoTV.com to drive to "Bravo at the Olympics" on the NBC Olympics website. BravoTV.com has experienced extraordinary growth in the last year, with page views up more than 100% and unique visitors growing by more than 25%.
Those who cannot make it all the way to Torino will be able to experience some of the region's notable cuisine and fine wines when they log-on to their computers. The entertaining shorts will include Bravo's hit series "Project Runway" and feature Tim Gunn providing fashion reviews of Olympian garb as well as clips from the ratings record setting "Project Runway" episode featuring Olympic star Sasha Cohen, the world silver medalist in ice skating. Tim Gunn's weekly blog, "Tim's Take," is the most popular spot on BravoTV.com's "Project Runway" site, receiving more than three million page views since it launched in December, with the overall "Project Runway" site bringing in over 27 million page views since the new season launch. In addition, "Queer Eye's" Ted Allen gives a lesson on wine from the region and two cooking demonstrations using authentic Torino recipes. The Olympic Torch will also pass to two experts in their field, Bravo's "Top Chef" Chief Chef and Judge, Tom Collichio, as well as host Katie Lee Joel, who will indulge the online audience with cheeses of the Torino region and introduce audiences to several dishes from the region through entertaining cooking demonstrations.
Bravo is the cable network that plugs people into arts, entertainment and pop culture with original programming, acclaimed off-network dramas, comedy and music specials, movies and by showing a whole different side of celebrities. Currently available in more than 79 million homes, Bravo is known for breaking exciting new personalities, shaking up the way we look at style, media, fame and Hollywood, pulling back the curtain on the creative process and making influential and inventive original programming. Its critically acclaimed and award-winning original programming includes "Inside the Actors Studio," "Project Runway," "Celebrity Poker Showdown," and "Blow Out" as well as the 2004 Emmy winner for Outstanding Reality Program, "Queer Eye." The network's latest hits include "Being Bobby Brown" and "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List."
Bravo is a program service of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, a division of NBC Universal one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Bravo has been a NBC Cable Network since December 2002 and was the first television service dedicated to film and the performing arts when it launched in December 1980. For more information visit www.bravotv.com.
About NBC Olympics: NBC, "America's Olympic Network," owns the exclusive U.S. media rights to the Olympic Games, television's most powerful property, through 2012, which includes Torino, Italy in 2006, Beijing in 2008, Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012. This February, NBC Universal will present the 2006 Olympic Winter Games from Torino, Italy (February 10-26, 2006). In August 2004, 203 million viewers watched as the networks of NBC Universal-NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Bravo, Telemundo, and NBC's HD affiliates-offered a record 1,210 hours of Olympic coverage from Athens. In February 2002, 187 million watched the Salt Lake Olympic Games on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC. For additional information, log onto NBCOlympics.com, the Internet's preeminent source for Olympic results, video, photos, news and athlete profiles through the Torino Games. NBCOlympics.com will be the only site in the United States featuring competition video of complete runs and routines, real-time results and medal counts for every event, an interactive television viewing guide to help visitors navigate the 418 hours of Olympic programming on the NBC Universal networks, and comprehensive, multimedia-filled profiles on every American Olympian.
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