Bravo’s ratings are up even without Project Runway

Despite the loss of Project Runway, which performed much better on its new Lifetime home, Bravo’s overall ratings are up.

During “the week that ‘Project Runway’ made its season six premiere on Lifetime, Bravo actually ranked higher in primetime than it did the week that ‘Project Runway’ had its season five premiere on Bravo itself last July,” Media Life reports. It averaged 761,000 viewers during prime time, which made it the 25th most-popular cable network.

But “[l]ast week, the week ended Aug. 23, it averaged 952,000 total viewers, placing it at No. 21, according to Nielsen. That’s up almost 24 percent,” while among viewers 18 to 49, Bravo “rose from 447,000 viewers, ranking it 18th on ad-supported cable, to 616,000, boosting it to 11th place, an increase of nearly 38 percent. And among 18-34s, it went from 236,000, putting it at No. 14, to 314,000, pushing it up to No. 10, for an increase of 33 percent,” Media Life says, attributing this to Bravo’s “creating hip reality shows that skew toward younger viewers and can be spun off or knocked off into a franchise.”