Bravo's season-four premiere of Project Runway drew the network's biggest audience ever for a show debut Wednesday night: 2.89 million total viewers and 1.98 million viewers 18-49.
The design competition was up 20% in total viewers and 24% in viewers 18-49 over the premiere of season three, which ran in fall 2006 and helped Bravo to rank as the top cable network in the demo for the 10 p.m. hour, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Runway is by far Bravo's most popular series ever, building consistently over its four seasons. After a weak series premiere in late 2004 drew only about 350,000 viewers, the show finished season one with more than 2 million. Season two built on that to finish with 3.2 million viewers, and season three was even bigger, culminating in an October 2006 finale watched by 5.4 million total viewers and 3.4 million adults 18-49.
On Thursday, Bravo's Web-site traffic grew 41% from the day of the season-three premiere, averaging 158,000 unique visitors, the network said.
