A fall update on our status
What's happening with this website as of September 2024.
The Bravo cable network in the United States has been the source of many long-running and popular reality television series, including the Real Housewives, Top Chef, and Below Deck franchises. Historically, many of these series have been available in Canada on the Slice channel, with Top Chef airing on the co-owned Food Network Canada.
Beginning September 1, 2024, Canadians need to access many of these programs in a new way. Just three months previously, cable provider Rogers Communications announced a new agreement with Bravo's parent company, NBCUniversal, to launch a Canadian version of the Bravo channel. Bravo will generally replace OLN (the former Outdoor Life Network), and that channel (and not Slice) should carry any new seasons of programs from the U.S. Bravo channel going forward – but there is an important distinction we'll get into later.
Additionally, Rogers' announcement said that Bravo programming would be available through Citytv+, its streaming package currently available as an add-on channel to Amazon Prime Video, though we also expect these programs to also be available on-demand and on the Citytv app for authenticated cable subscribers. As of September 4, programs haven't been added to either platform yet, but the channel's website says it will be "available on Citytv+ this September".
We'll explain further below, as we try to answer a few other questions we anticipate some people may have about this change.
Where can I find this new Bravo channel in Canada?
If you subscribe to a cable, satellite, or fibre-based TV service from a provider like Bell, Rogers, Shaw Direct, or Eastlink, there's a good chance you already have Bravo Canada, though it may appear in your listings under its previous name of OLN. The channel itself has been around since 1997 and on most traditional cable providers is typically carried in “full cable”-type packages alongside the likes of HGTV and CTV Sci-Fi.
Common channel positions for the new Bravo Canada as of this writing include, according to our cursory research:
- Rogers Cable (classic digital service in eastern Canada): 37 (most parts of southern Ontario), 412 (Standard Definition), 593 (High Definition)
- Rogers Ignite TV (eastern Canada): 319
- Rogers Ignite TV (former Shaw systems in western Canada): 528
- Shaw Direct satellite TV (national): 431
- Bell Satellite TV (national) and Bell Fibe TV (Ontario and Quebec): 411 (SD), 1411 (HD)
- Bell Aliant Fibe TV (Atlantic Canada): 122 (SD), 622 (HD)
Telus Optik TV: 357(it appears, as per the Telus service updates page, Telus is dropping the channel entirely)- Eastlink: 821
However, with the rebranding, it is possible that OLN / Bravo's position will change on some providers so it's closer to similarly-themed channels like, say, Slice. If you need more information, contact your TV provider directly.
If you do not subscribe to a traditional TV service, or if it doesn't include Bravo and it's not practical to add it, again you can consider subscribing to Citytv+. As of this writing in August 2024, Citytv Plus costs $4.99 per month as an add-on to Amazon Prime, which itself costs $9.99 per month or $99.00 per year (prices are before applicable taxes, and are subject to change without notice).
Alternatively, it appears that NBCUniversal's reality-focused international streaming service Hayu – which includes access to most Bravo programs on a next-day basis – will remain available to Canadian customers. That service currently starts at $6.99 for a one-month subscription.
So I don't have to be a Rogers Cable customer to get the new Bravo channel?
That's correct, you don't have to be a Rogers customer — but it won't hurt if you are one.
Like other Rogers-owned specialty channels like Sportsnet and FX, as well as the OLN channel it'll be replacing, Bravo will be distributed through Rogers Cable as well as other service providers (as we've noted in the channel listings above).
That said, availability on other providers will be subject to Rogers maintaining carriage agreements with those providers, and under the circumstances, some providers (like Bell) might be less willing to renew those deals when they come up for renewal. Rogers Cable subscribers, on the other hand, will be more or less guaranteed to maintain access to Bravo if their package includes it.
Will all Bravo programs move from Slice to Bravo Canada immediately?
No. Rogers' promotional material to date, including its June announcement and some of the material posted by TV providers, has referred specifically to "new seasons" of Bravo series.
What that means is that new episodes of series with ongoing new seasons as of August 31 will remain on Slice until their conclusion.
Slice TV listings for the first few days of September, as well as a recent Corus announcement, indicate that the channel will continue to air the ongoing seasons of the following series:
- Below Deck Mediterranean (season 9 having premiered on June 3 and may extend into October);
- The Real Housewives of Dubai (with season 2 scheduled to run until September 17);
- Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles (season 15 of which concludes September 11); and
- The Real Housewives of Orange County (season 18 having started on July 11 and is likely to continue into October or November).
These will, as before, be available on the Slice cable channel as well as the StackTV streaming package, and Corus has said that the full seasons will be available to stream until some point in 2025.
On the other hand, Bravo Canada will immediately begin airing marathons of past seasons of those programs and other Bravo franchises, and these library seasons will no longer be available to Slice. Once new seasons of Bravo series start this fall – like the fifth season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which is scheduled to premiere September 18 – those series will be exclusive to Bravo in Canada.
It's unclear what will happen to ongoing programs associated with Bravo franchises but which were technically commissioned by NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service – which at the moment seems to be limited to The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip. That's because these were, to our understanding, under a separate contract for Peacock programming between NBCU and Slice's parent Corus Entertainment; that overall contract will continue into the 2024–25 TV season.
One other exception we will note: a new, eleventh season of Top Chef Canada, the licensed spin-off of the Bravo cooking competition series, has been announced as airing on Food Network Canada starting October 14, 2024, and will not air on Bravo Canada. Because the Canadian series was commissioned by Corus directly, it is not affected by Rogers' deal, but Bravo Canada will air the original American series going forward.
Wait, wasn't there a Bravo channel in Canada before?
Yep. The original Bravo channel in Canada (branded "Bravo!" with an exclamation mark) was in 1995 launched by CHUM Limited, the then-owner of MuchMusic and Citytv, and was under the purview of Moses Znaimer. The Canadian service was not strictly modelled on the American channel – viewers of that era might recall Bravo!’s tagline “New Style Arts Channel”, which Bravo U.S. didn’t use – but the “Bravo” trademark was used under licence from Bravo U.S., and both initially had a focus on the performing arts.
However, unlike Bravo U.S., the Canadian channel mostly kept its arts focus until shortly after CHUM's sale to CTVglobemedia (now Bell Media) in 2007, when it pivoted to a focus on drama programming. Though there were occasional overlaps in programs during that time, Bravo! in Canada never picked up shows like the Real Housewives franchise, allowing them to go to Slice. The channel fully rebranded to its current name, CTV Drama Channel, in 2019, and will not be affected by this launch.
Why are these shows moving? Why can’t they just stay on Slice?
As we mentioned above, Rogers has signed a new agreement with Bravo parent company NBCUniversal that includes Canadian rights to the Bravo brand and its programming, describing it as part of its strategy to "invest[] to bring Canadians the most coveted sports and entertainment".
Rogers has yet to announce financial details or other information about to how Rogers got the rights, nor has NBCUniversal made any statement indicating why it is parting ways with Slice.
But the other significant data point we have relates to the declining financial health of Corus Entertainment, the parent company of Slice and the current Food Network Canada channel (we say “current” as the announcement linked above noted that Rogers separately secured rights to programming to Warner Bros. Discovery brands like Food Network starting in 2025).
Even before Rogers' announcement, Corus had been weighed down by a significant debt load, meaning the company may not have been in a position to compete with large financial offers from Rogers for future rights. But even if Corus had made a competitive offer, program suppliers like NBCUniversal might have had doubts about Corus' ability to pay for a new contract, particularly if that existing debt load leads to a creditor (bankruptcy) protection filing.
Ironically, the fact that Corus hasn't been able to renew these rights has caused the company's situation to spiral further, nudging the company into penny-stock territory and increasing the possibility of that creditor protection filing – but that's a topic for another time.
What will happen to Slice?
On August 30, Corus announced its fall programming plans for Slice, which include alternate reality programs like British series Married to the Game, true crime documentaries and news shows, long-running satirical news series The Daily Show, and various sitcom repeats, alongside its remaining episodes of Bravo programming.
Wait, I liked OLN! What's happening to the shows there?
For the benefit of those who haven't come across the channel in a while, OLN had long ago abandoned any pretence of a focus on outdoor life, and instead had been mostly airing long marathons of shows like Storage Wars (rerun from A&E), the short-lived Storage Wars Canada, and the ongoing comedy series Impractical Jokers (from U.S. networks TruTV and TBS).
Suffice it to say that those series won't carry over to Bravo. However, new episodes of Impractical Jokers will continue to be available on the Citytv website and app, as well as Citytv+.
Significant revisions
- September 4, 2024: minor updates
- August 30, 2024: additional sections; updates on Slice's future programming; minor grammar updates
- August 27, 2024: initial post