Weinstein Defends Project Runway Move To Lifetime
Producer Says Network Switch Will Help Grow Series’ Audience
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 4/14/2008 2:32:00 PM
New York—Unfazed by a lawsuit from Bravo, producer Harvey Weinstein Monday defended moving Project Runway to LifetimeTelevision, saying it will permit the reality series to grow and increase its audience. And he said he’s got several other shows in the works for the women’s network.
“This is a place we want to do business,” Weinstein, co-chairman of The Weinstein Co., said. “We’ll be bringing a lot of our shows here. We look forward to a long and lasting relationship with them.”
And in some cheeky comments, Weinstein said the expects to mend fences and eventually salvage his friendship with Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal, parent of Bravo, Project Runway’s current home.
Lifetime made its surprising—and controversial—acquisition of Project Runwaythe centerpiece of its upfront press conference in Manhattan, where not only Weinstein but also Project Runway’s Tim Gunn appeared.
Last week NBCU and Bravo sued The Weinstein Co., which produces Project Runway, claimingthat it had right of first refusal on the reality series, which is Bravo’s biggest hit and a signature show for the network.
Lifetime reportedly did a five-year deal, valued at $150 million, for the program, featuring model Heidi Klum, with Weinstein.
“There’s no rivalry between Bravo and Lifetime and me,” Weinstein told reporters after Lifetime’s upfront. “As I said before, Jeff Zucker has been my one of my best friends for many years. And the show was never going to be renewed for Bravo anyhow. That even NBC will tell you. It was always leaving Bravo. We wanted to grow the show. We had the rights to leave, so there was never a question of Bravo.”
NBCU declined to comment Monday. And Weinstein declined to specifically comment on NBCU and Bravo’s suit against him.
But neither Weinstein, nor Lifetime, were making any apologies about Project Runway moving to the women’s network, which is owned by The Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp., Monday.
“Here, we feel the welcome of Lifetime,” Weinstein said during his formal remarks during Lifetime’s presentation. “It’s double the audience for us. It’ll give us incredible potential to do the things that we want to do with the show, to grow the show, to make the show bigger, better, and still keeping the idealism of a show that won the Peabody Award—the first reality show that ever did.”
Somewhat tongue in cheek, Weinstein also maintained that eventually, his friendship with Zucker will be restored.
“Jeff Zucker has been a friend of mine for many years,” Weinstein said. “Over the next three years—once I finish my servitude of cleaning his house, driving him to work everyday, babysitting for the kids and taking Caryn (Zucker’s wife) shopping—I think we will be friends again. It’s a three-year sentence that began.”
Weinstein said he has at least two additional reality shows in development for Lifetime. They are Project Pygmalion and Models of the Runway, whichtakes the point of view of the models on Project Runway, according to Weinstein.
Models of the Runway is set for November as a companion to Project Runway, while Project Pygmalion is in development for 2009, according to Lifetime.
Project Pygmalion “is sort of My Fair Lady, finding the next My Fair Lady, the next Pygmalion, transforming somebody’s life,” Weinstein said.
“I think it will be fun and exciting culturally, and as iconic, hopefully, as Project Runway and be a sister in some way to Project Runway,” he said. “That’s just first of the many things we’re doing with Project Runway.”
As for what he called “the model show,”Weinstein said, “We’ve never seen Project Runway from the point of view of the model show,” he said. “We had brought that to Bravo, but they didn’t think that was a good idea. These guys did.”
Andrea Wong, who has been president and CEO of Lifetime Networks for just short of a year, called the acquisition of Project Runway “the biggest highlight of the year for me.”
She said, “We’re going to do a number of shows together. We’re going to convince him to do movies eventually for us, too.”
Weinstein credited his relationship with Wong, a former ABC programming executive, and several top-level Walt Disney Co. executives—Disney CEO Bob Iger and Ann Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group—with paving the way for the Project Runway move.
Weinstein and his brother Bob sold their film studio, Miramax Films, to Disney.
“I’ve known Andrea in my Disney years,” Weinstein said. “We sold Miramax to Disney, and Andrea and Bob Iger were always incredibility gracious and sweet to me. The other person who was also sweet was Anne Sweeney."
Weinstein also noted that he also had a good relationship with Lifetime co-owner Hearst through Talk, the failed magazine they partnered.
During the upfront, Lifetime president of entertainment Susanne Daniels said that Project Runway will be “front and center” on Lifetime’s lineup.
“I believe Lifetime in some ways is going to be a better home to Runway (than Bravo),” Daniels said. “Our network has greater reach than Bravo, almost 8 million more homes, than Bravo. We have double the women 18-to-49 rating, total day. We’re 25% higher in prime. We have more female viewers in 100K (100,000) households than Bravo.”
“We have more with four-plus-years-of-college education…In short, we really believe we offer the perfect environment to grow this hit show and that’s what we intend to do,” she added.
At the upfront, Gunn said that “the warmth, the grace, with which we’ve been embraced by Lifetime is simply phenomenal,” adding it “was a new dawn and a new day and a new era for us.”
Gunn told reporters, “As a change artist, someone who actually celebrates change and welcomes it, this is a very, very exciting time. You know my catchphrase—Make it work. With Lifetime, we’re going to make it work.”
Klum also appeared in a brief video clip.
“Fashion is about change, and Project Runway moving to Lifetime is an awesome change,” she said. “Thank you very much for having us, and until them, auf wiedersehen!”
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