Bravo: Are they paying more attention to social media now?

Bravo has made some big changes this year, and it seems that social media reactions have played a big part in how they made these changes.

When The Real Housewives of Orange County premiered on Bravo in 2006, Instagram wasn’t a thing for four more years.  Twitter was created the same year, and FaceBook stopped requiring a college email to create an account.  Housewives posting on social media wasn’t a thing and we all had phones without internet on them at that point.  That was 14 years ago, but it seems like centuries ago!

Watching shows like RHOC and The Real Housewives of Atlanta were still an escape.  But you watched the show and then went back to doing whatever you were doing.  You didn’t get on Twitter to see how other people were reacting to a controversial scene, or to see how Housewife A was defending her actions.  But now we do!  It has changed the way we watch TV and the way we choose our favorites.

In addition to this, surveys like the Viewer’s Voice “help inform critical decisions at Bravo, USA, E!, SYFY, and Oxygen.”  It is a direct line for viewers to offer their opinions on cast members, storylines, and everything else that goes into a season.  So when fans don’t like a certain wife these days, they have ways of making that known to the network.

This year, in particular, has been a big year of changes for casts of our favorite shows.  NeNe Leakes is done, Tamra Judge, Vicki Gunvalson, Denise Richards, Dorinda Medley, and Bethenny Frankel all left their respective franchises either voluntarily…or not voluntarily.  A lot of these women who did not leave voluntarily had a huge backlash on social media for one reason or another.  Fans did not enjoy Tamra and her antics anymore, they didn’t want to watch Dorinda scream at Tinsley Mortimer, and they were tired of watching NeNe act like she ran the place.

So just as we are all adapting to the impact social media can have on our lives, it seems our dear Bravo is doing the same.  And we appreciate that they are listening because sometimes, change really is good.  And if we had to sit more one more season of Tamra and her holier than thou attitude, we might scream.  We might scream anyway because she’s gone.  Hallelujah!

Bravo, Bravo…fickle Bravo!