{"id":696277,"date":"2026-06-10T20:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696277\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T20:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:07:08","slug":"how-nbc-created-the-network-paradigm-andy-cohen-on-real-housewives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696277\/","title":{"rendered":"How NBC Created the Network Paradigm; Andy Cohen on ‘Real Housewives’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, Variety\u2018s Michael Schneider discusses Variety\u2019s plans to take a long look at NBC\u2019s centennial and its role in advancing mass media in the electronic age with the creation of the first radio network.<\/a> And we have highlights from Kate Aurthur\u2019s recent sit-down with Andy Cohen at the Newport Beach TV Fest.<\/a> The two reflect on the \u201congoing documentary project\u201d that is \u201cThe Real Housewives\u201d franchise.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn tackling a large project on NBC, Schneider observes that the value of taking a retrospective look back is to find the patterns and parallels to the modern era. The mid-1920s period when the National Broadcasting Company was born was a gold rush era driven by emerging technology (thank you, Marconi) and the opportunity to prosper by achieving scale \u2014 i.e. creating a network that would have much larger reach than any single radio station. That was the inspiration of David Sarnoff, the RCA Corp. leader who drove the launch of NBC, which laid the foundation for many more firsts. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou talk about parallels to today. Every step of the way, technology changed things. The company had to evolve,\u201d Schneider says. \u201cI found a great film strip from 1948 that NBC put out, \u2018The Dawn of Television,\u2019 where they\u2019re celebrating the fact that they\u2019re 22 years old and the amount of progress they\u2019ve already seen for the National Broadcasting Company. This is 1948 and they\u2019re just introducing this new medium of television. And it feels very akin to what we\u2019re seeing today as NBC evolves into streaming and other platforms beyond just broadcast. As much as things change, some things don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn her conversation with Cohen, who also hosts Bravo\u2019s \u201cWatch What Happens Live\u201d talk show, Aurthur pressed the multihyphenate on when he knew that \u201cReal Housewives\u201d was a true franchise that would endure. Cohen pointed to a key decision made by former Bravo chief Lauren Zalaznick. (The full video of Aurthur\u2019s session with Cohen will be available on Variety.com later this week.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLauren Zalaznick changed the name. It was going to just be called \u2018The Real Housewives.\u2019 And then she changed it to \u2018The Real Housewives of Orange County\u2019 in case we did it anywhere else. And I was like, \u2018Well, that\u2019s the stupidest thing I\u2019ve ever. We\u2019re not doing this show anywhere else. Here we are, 10 cities later,\u201d Cohen says.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother turning point came when the New York iteration of \u201cReal Housewives\u201d was crafted out of a different project. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe turned development for a show called \u2018Manhattan Moms\u2019 into \u2018The Real Housewives of New York.\u2019 When I tell you that my mind was so blown. I was like, wait a minute, we can do this in New York. And these women are couldn\u2019t be more different. It was like the New York women and the Orange County women were so different in the way they spoke and the way they lived, but they were women and they were dealing with issues that weren\u2019t so far apart. And it just worked,\u201d Cohen says.<\/p>\n

\n\tListen to Daily Variety<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0iHeartPodcasts<\/a>,\u00a0Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Variety\u2019s\u00a0YouTube Podcast<\/a>\u00a0channel,\u00a0Amazon Music<\/a>,\u00a0Spotify<\/a>\u00a0and other podcast platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On today\u2019s episode of \u201cDaily Variety\u201d podcast, Variety\u2018s Michael Schneider discusses Variety\u2019s plans to take a long look…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[8205,16792,88,301674,301675,92],"class_list":["post-696277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-andy-cohen","tag-daily-variety","tag-entertainment","tag-nbc-100","tag-newport-beach-tv-fest","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}