CONTACTS:
Joe Durkin/Bright House Networks
727-329-2926
joe.durkin@mybrighthouse.com
Vanthan Khel/NBC Universal Cable
201-735-3591
vanthan.khel@nbcuni.com
Amelie Tseng/Bravo
212-664-2749
amelie.tseng@nbcuni.com
Bright House Networks and BRAVO
Bring Interactive Entertainment to 'Top Chef' Viewers
(St. Petersburg, FL - October 27, 2006) Bright House Networks and Bravo team up to bring interactive entertainment to viewers of the second season of Bravo's hit one-hour reality competition series "Top Chef," airing Wednesday nights at 10:00 p.m./ET.
Throughout the season on "Top Chef," Bright House Networks will encourage Digital Cable customers to respond with their remote control to a series of topical questions and voice their opinions about the contestants. The questions will be synchronized to occur at precise moments during the one-hour show. Responses will be recorded, compiled, and the results displayed to viewers in real time.
“We are excited about offering another interactive entertainment opportunity with this second season of Bravo’s ‘Top Chef,’ and for once again providing our digital customers with a truly interactive television experience,” said Kevin Hyman, President of Bright House Networks Tampa Bay Division.
"We're excited to partner with Bright House Networks and continue to innovate in interactive television,” said Jean-Briac Perrette, Senior Vice President, New Media and CFO, NBC Universal Cable. "This season should be an even bigger success given the popularity of the show and the interactive opportunity.”
Bravo also continues its overall series partnership with Food & Wine magazine to include the expertise of the publication's Gail Simmons as a regular on-air judge, and prizing for the winner of "Top Chef" to be featured in an upcoming issue of Food & Wine and appear at the annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.
Bravo's newest hit reality competition series "Top Chef" offers a fascinating window into the competitive, pressure-filled environment of world-class cookery and the restaurant business at the highest level. The series features fifteen aspiring chefs who compete for their shot at culinary stardom and the chance to earn the prestigious title of "Top Chef." Each episode holds two challenges for the chefs. The first is a quick-fire test of their basic abilities and the second is a more involved elimination challenge designed to test the versatility and invention of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for a range of demanding clients. The competing chefs live and breathe the high-pressure lifestyle that comes with being a master chef, and each week someone is asked to "pack up their knives" and go home.
Best-selling author Padma Lakshmi will host the new season. Tom Colicchio, one of the culinary world's most celebrated figures and co-founder of New York City's Gramercy Tavern and Craft Restaurants, serves as lead judge and head chef to the competing chefs. Food expert Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine is as a judge for the series.
About Bright House Networks
Bright House Networks is the nation’s 6th largest MSO with over 2 million customers in several large markets including Bakersfield, California; Birmingham, Alabama; Detroit, Michigan; Indianapolis, Indiana; Orlando, Florida (Central Florida Division) and Tampa Bay, Florida along with several other smaller systems in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The high-growth Tampa/Central Florida markets are contiguous and form one of the country’s largest cable clusters.
About Bravo
Bravo is the cable network that plugs people into arts, entertainment and pop culture with original programming, acclaimed drama series, movies, comedy and music specials, and by showing a whole different side of celebrities. Currently available in more than 80 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 original programming includes the Emmy-nominated “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,” 12-time Emmy-nominated "Inside the Actors Studio," “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” “Top Chef,” "Celebrity Poker Showdown,” as well as the 2004 Emmy winner for Outstanding Reality Program, "Queer Eye," and the four-time Emmy-nominated hit competition series, “Project Runway.”
About NBC Universal Cable
NBC Universal Cable, a division of NBC Universal, one of the world's preeminent media companies, drives the company's cable strategic development and growth including video-on-demand, pay-per-view, HDTV, TV EST (electronic sell-through), TV Wireless distribution and retransmission consent, and oversees the cable distribution, marketing and local ad sales of fourteen properties (Bravo, CNBC, CNBC World, MSNBC, mun2, NBC Weather Plus, SCI FI, ShopNBC, Sleuth, Telemundo, Telemundo Puerto Rico, Universal HD, USA and the Olympics on cable). NBC Universal Cable also directs and manages the company's cable and new media investments including A&E, The History Channel, History Channel International, The Biography Channel, National Geographic International, the Sundance Channel and Tivo.
