Every Week Is Premiere Week

For ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox, premiere week lasted from Sunday, Sept. 23, to Saturday Sept. 29. One week.

For Lauren Zalaznick, every week is premiere week.

That's why the president of Bravo started the final season of its brand-defining show Queer Eye on Oct. 2. The second Tuesday of the “official” fall TV season, as defined by bigger, broadcast networks.

The Fab Five went up against The Unit (CBS), The Biggest Loser (NBC), House (Fox) and Dancing With the Stars (ABC). Big names all.

On the morning of the face-off, she's sanguine about taking broadcast premieres almost head-on. After all, cable networks like hers are supposed to debut shows in summer, when over-the-air nets are in reruns.

“Will Queer Eye get absolutely the highest number it could ever get in a million years?” she asks to whatever audience is in earshot. “No, but if anything can cut through on the second Tuesday of a new Fall season, it's Queer Eye.”

This is the show that changed the face of TV, the thinking of a large portion of the American population and Bravo itself.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was unabashed about a stereotype. It took a tacit assumption that gay men have a better “sartorial aesthetic” than straight guys and said it “unapologetically, but happily, with no set of defenses.”

Just watch, the show begged, and you'll feel better at the end of each episode. Queer guys could teach straight guys a thing or two, and both sides — as well as viewers — would be better off because of it.

The word “queer” was destigmatized. “Metrosexual” became part of the lexicon. And Americans' eyes were literally opened to the contributions a long-ostracized set of neighbors could, can and do make to culture and society, with wit and flair.

But this is not about the social impact of Queer Eye. It's about the competitive impact.

Having had the “absolutely unexpected” hit on their hands, Zalaznick and crew tried to figure out just what had clicked. And let it make over the network itself, just as Ted, Carson, Jai, et al., made over straight guys every episode.

Bravo started out in 1980 as an arts-and-culture network. You know, symphonies and theater, that sort of thing. High-culture events where audiences burst out exclaiming “Bravo!”

What resonated about Queer Eye was its ability to define what modern arts and culture meant. For Bravo, that did not mean opera, orchestras or ballets. It meant: Fashion, food, home design, beauty and … all things to do with pop culture.

That gave structure to the shows it would look to develop and green-light. And if it could succeed on one night with one original pop show, it could succeed on another.

Out came Top Chef (food), Top Design (design), Project Runway (fashion), Blowout (beauty) and Work Out (same). This year, My Life on the D-List with Kathy Griffin would earn a primetime Emmy for its satirical look at — what's left? — pop culture.

So, as Queer Eye starts its final season, Bravo now has original programming on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. But instead of trying to program every hour of every evening, like the broadcast networks, it has given itself a different mandate.

Be fresh. Fifty-two weeks a year.

Make every week a premiere week. Or at least a week where new original programming appears.

So, on Tuesdays, Real Housewives of Orange County gives way to Work Out which gives way to My Life On the D-List which gives way to Flipping Out.

And on Wednesdays, Top Chef gives way to Top Design which gives way to Shear Genius. On Thursdays now, Hey Paula debuts, disappears and is replaced by Welcome to the Parker, which drops out in favor of Tim Gunn's Guide to Style.

All told, Bravo will treat 15 or 16 different weeks as premiere weeks, to debut new or returning shows. Forty-eight or 50 weeks become weeks to deliver new episodes of original programming.

In the Bravo world, there is not just a fall season. There is a mid-winter season, a late winter season, an early spring season and so on. Each season lasts eight or ten weeks.

And Zalaznick doesn't wait for someone else to say when the season starts. Bravo defines when each is and what will kick it off.

After all, viewers are waiting all year to be entertained.

Not just in the fall.