"Project Runway" producers: Bravo is OUT!

Auf Wiedersehen, Bravo.

Guten tag, Lifetime?

The LA Times blog Show Tracker is reporting that The Weinstein Co. - which produces Bravo's award-winning fashion reality show - has signed a five-season deal with Lifetime. Thanks to some legal quibbles with Bravo's parent company NBC Universal, producers are looking at "Lifetime’s unique cable reach" to boost the show. That means the show's sixth season will air on Lifetime. According to the blog, "it remains unclear how Bravo will handle the fifth season of "Runway," which is set to air on the network sometime this year."

Yikes!

Let's just hope the move to Lifetime doesn't diminish "PR's" quality because there's nothing less fierce than a challenge to design clothes for abused women on the run from their psycho ex-husbands.

But if Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn are on board with the network switch - both have said they are - there's no doubt in my mind that they'll make it work.

UPDATE: Well, NBC isn't letting "Project Runway" walk off without a fight. It has sued the Weinstein Co. in New York Supreme Court, claiming that Bravo and NBC Universal had the "right of first refusal for future cycles of the show and any spinoffs." Basically, to quote recent winner Christian, it's one hot tranny mess.

--Malavika Jagannathan, mjaganna@greenbaypressgazette.com