Bravo unveiled a packed slate of new and returning shows for the 2025-26 season Wednesday, but missing from the day’s announcements was any word on the future of the cable channel’s anchor late-night show.
Currently in the middle of its sixteenth year on the air, Watch What Happens Live has not yet been renewed for 2026.
That’s unusual for the Andy Cohen-hosted show, which has traditionally been renewed a full year ahead—usually in December or January, and sometimes for multiple seasons. (Last year’s announcement came during Bravo’s May series renewal announcements, concurrent with the news that Cohen had been cleared by an outside investigation of harassment allegations from Real Housewives stars Leah McSweeney and Brandi Glanville.)
The delayed renewal also comes amid persistent rumors that Cohen would be making “a big announcement” regarding his future with Bravo. Cohen himself poured cold water on those rumors on his SiriusXM show in March saying, “I have no announcement. And Bravo—there’s no huge announcement.”
While once popular cable brands like TBS and Comedy Central have increasingly become “zombie channels,” airing mostly reruns of shows like Friends and The Office, Bravo has managed to buck the trend, continuing to produce original shows that draw viewers.
In fact, taking into account viewership on Peacock, which streams next day episodes of Bravo’s original shows, parent company NBC Universal says four of the channel’s shows delivered their most-watched seasons ever this year.
But while that success has led the channel to pick up three new original unscripted shows and renew nine others for the 2025-26 season, Bravo has been less forthcoming with streaming numbers for Watch What Happens Live, which—like most everything on cable—has seen a steep decrease in linear viewership in recent years, dropping from an average nightly audience among viewers 18-49 of 477,000 viewers nightly in 2014 to just 143,000 in 2024.
NBC Universal is set to present Bravo’s 2025-26 slate to advertisers in New York this coming Monday, May 12th, giving the channel another chance to announce a renewal for Watch What Happens Live. We’ll be watching and will let you know what (if anything) is revealed.
Bravo: Please renew Watch What Happens Live. I have been watching it since day one and it is still one of the most entertaining shows on T.V.