After 11 seasons on Lifetime, Project Runway is moving back to Bravo for upcoming season 17. NBC Universal made the announcement Monday at its upfront in New York City. “Project Runway is coming back where it all started; it’s coming home on Bravo,” said the network’s Andy Cohen.
The fashion design competition, hosted by supermodel Heidi Klum, was a smash hit from the get-go at Bravo, where its first five seasons aired from 2004-2008. In a shocking move that prompted a string of lawsuits, The Weinstein Co. struck a deal to move it to Lifetime without giving Bravo a chance to match Lifetime’s offer.
This is just the latest installment of the fallout in the wake of The Weinstein Co.’s downfall after co-founder Harvey Weinstein was exposed as a serial sexual predator last year via Pulitzer Prize-winning stories in The New York Times. A+E Television Networks, the parent company of Lifetime, terminated its deal with TWC on Jan. 10, ending their commitment to air any further seasons of the show.
Project Runway was created by Eli Holzman. In 2008, it won a Peabody Award "for using the 'television reality contest' genre to engage, inform, enlighten and entertain.” All seasons thus far were filmed in NYC, with the exception of season 6, filmed in Los Angeles.
The program has been nominated for dozens of Primetime Emmys; Klum and Tim Gunn won for Outstanding Reality Competition Host in 2013. The popularity of Project Runway has also spawned spinoffs like Under the Gunn and Project Runway: Junior, and several international iterations all over the globe.