New York—The nasty brides are back with a vengeance.
The return of WE TV’s signature series Bridezillas broke the show’s season-premiere record, drawing 1 million viewers and securing a 0.8 rating, network officials said Tuesday.
The Sunday debut of Bridezillas’ fifth season was the highest-rated premiere episode for the original series and drew the network’s highest delivery for a premiere among women 18 to 34, or 234,000, women 18 to 49, or 408,000 and women 25 to 54, or 316,000.
The household rating reflected a 21% increase compared to the network’s previous Bridezillas season premiere. Coupled with two encore airings Sunday night, the series premiered with a cumulative 1.5 rating.
WE released the ratings just hours after pulling off a Bridezillas event Tuesday morning. The network took the cake Tuesday morning with a stunt in Times Square that had 10 brides-to-be scaling a 10-foot tall slice of wedding cake to win $25,000. Click here to view an online photo gallery capturing the madness.
The women’s network held the event, its fourth annual Bridezillas stunt, to kick off the new season of is highest-rated series.
In Tuesday’s stunt—done in conjunction with a local radio station, WPLJ, whose DJ Race Taylor MC-ed the event—WE clad its 10 contestants in wedding dresses, white helmets and sneakers to scale slice of cake, which was decorated with more than 50 gallons of butter cream icing.
After stretching and working out with some trainers from the New York Sports Clubs, the contestants made the run for the cake. As it turns out, Meghan Gressler of Basking Ridge, N.J., sprinted to the top of the cake far ahead of everyone else, grabbing the prize bouquet and therefore, winning the $25,000 prize.
WE executive vice president and general manager Kim Martin presented Gressler and her fiancé, who are getting married Saturday, with a huge oversized check right in the middle of Times Square.
As part of the event, WE has women—clad in wedding veils, Bridezillas T-shirts and khaki pants—handing out “Ring Pop” candies and flyers for the show and its sister series, Platinum Weddings.
The new season of Bridezillas has 22 one-hour episodes, and is expanding by including more footage of “bridezilla” family members, like mothers, mothers-in-laws to-be and grooms.
“You’re going to see how the family reacts to the bridezilla’s behavior,” Martin said. “They’re really everybody’s favorite bad girls.”
In the press release about the new season’s debut ratings, Martin said, “We are thrilled to see our enormously popular Bridezillas series once again break network rating records. This series has a great following and we’re excited to bring it to even more viewers this season.”
