MAY 7, 2026

Welcome back to Buffering, where our focus this issue is on the unscripted side of TV. All this week, Vulture has been spotlighting the Reality Masterminds who’ve made the genre such a huge part of the small-screen landscape. You’ll find selections from this series below, starting with my conversation with the NBCUniversal unscripted gurus who have helped give the still-struggling Peacock its biggest successes. We’ve also got highlights from my profile of Disney unscripted chief Rob Mills, while my colleague Nick Quah caught up with Netflix unscripted boss Brandon Riegg, whom we talked to in 2020 and again in 2023. Finally, I have some thoughts on the passing of Ted Turner. Thanks for reading, and here’s wishing all the moms out there (including my own!) a happy Mother’s Day.

— Joe Adalian, West Coast editor

Editor's Note: Because of a publishing error, an earlier version of this email included a few lines from last week's Buffering. We've corrected this week's edition below.

In this edition: Rachel Smith, Sharon Vuong, Rob Mills, Brandon Riegg, Scott Speedman, James Cameron, David Zaslav, Josh D’Amaro, David Ellison, and Ted Turner.

Light a candle for the handful of broadcast-network shows still on the bubble awaiting news of renewal or cancellation ahead of next week’s upfront presentations in New York. I’m saying hourly prayers for ABC’s R.J. Decker, the Scott Speedman–led detective show that, based on ratings, should be a slam dunk for renewal. Even though it only got a nine-week run on the network this spring, the show is averaging just over 5 million viewers when delayed viewing is tallied, putting it ahead of several other big network shows already renewed. ABC has done really well with smartly written procedurals anchored by unconventional lead characters, such as High Potential and Will Trent, and early signs suggest the network’s audience is already embracing R.J. It deserves more time for an even bigger audience to find it. —Josef Adalian

The CEOs made the shareholder rounds this week. David Ellison doubled (tripled? quadrupled? how many times has he promised this?) down on Paramount Skydance’s 30-theatrical-movies-a-year commitment. Josh D’Amaro said Disney+ would be “the primary relationship between Disney and its fans” in the near future. And David Zaslav got to present Warner Bros. Discovery’s higher-than-expected growth in streaming revenue. —Eric Vilas-Boas

By Josef Adalian

Photo Illustration: Vulture/NBCUniversal

When NBCUniversal jumped into the streaming business in 2020, it was barely keeping up with its competitors. Netflix and HBO Max, with their respective Friday binge drops and buzzy Sunday-night lineups, were unequivocally winning the streaming wars. Meanwhile, NBCU’s cable-content pipeline had all but dried up: USA Network had long since succumbed to stormy weather, while E! failed to keep up with the Kardashians and allowed reality TV’s First Family to defect to Disney’s Hulu in December of that year.

Once NBCU launched its own flashy streaming service with Peacock, however, one cable brand not only managed to rise above the noise but also command all the conversation surrounding its reality-TV niche: Bravo. Even as NBCU execs followed its competitors’ lead and took a wrecking ball to much of its linear TV business, they continued investing in the home of Real Housewives and Below Deck, betting that a still-popular Bravo cable network could function as a vital programming pipeline for Peacock. It was exactly the right call: Six years after Peacock launched, NBCU’s portfolio of unscripted content — including streaming phenomenons Love Island USA and The Traitors and broadcast warhorses America’s Got Talent and The Voice — is more potent than ever.

Bravo still boasts a robust slate of roughly two dozen original series, so the network weathered the cable-ratings apocalypse far better than most of its peers. (Last year, it ranked as a top-five entertainment cable network among viewers under 50; by contrast, MTV and VH1, two cable networks whose unscripted programs once battled Bravo shows for eyeballs and attention, barely have a pulse after Paramount execs reduced content spending.) But its real value lies in streaming on Peacock. In 2022, NBCU took the bold step of streaming all Bravo content on Peacock the day after it aired on cable. Broadcast networks had been doing this for years, but basic cable channels were far more restrictive about giving folks outside the pay-TV bundle access to their entire content slates. Having the contemporary Bravo library as part of its offerings gave Peacock a powerful tool to attract new subscribers and hold on to the ones it already had. It also allowed Bravo franchises to stay relevant with younger audiences who would never think of signing up for cable but were interested when scandal broke out on Vanderpump Rules or Summer House.

Establishing Peacock as the digital home for all things Bravo —  including thousands of hours of library shows from the last 20 years — gave Peacock a content base upon which to build and expand, something it did to spectacular effect with the mid-2022 reboot of Love Island USA (poached from CBS) and the early 2023 launch of The Traitors. These shows were designed to attract viewers from reality TV’s other major genres, namely, dating and strategy, and they succeeded: Both shows rank among Peacock’s most-watched titles, scripted or unscripted, according to Nielsen’s streaming ratings charts. And yet Bravo personalities helped both series build their viewership: VPR alum Ariana Madix made a crucial cameo on Love Island in its second season and then took over as host, while titans from Real Housewives, Below Deck, and Summer House have appeared in every season of The Traitors.

Two execs are responsible for helping to make Peacock the biggest name in streaming reality TV: Rachel Smith and Sharon Vuong. Smith has day-to-day oversight of all Bravo and Peacock unscripted content, working with longtime Bravo boss Frances Berwick, who now serves as chairman of Bravo and head of all of Peacock unscripted. Vuong, meanwhile, works with NBC Entertainment chairman Pearlena Igbokwe and oversees all unscripted shows at the network  after previously developing both Love Island and The Traitors at Peacock. As two members of our inaugural class of Reality Masterminds, Vuong and Smith discuss how Peacock found its unscripted identity, the role the Bravo-verse continues to play in shaping its streaming success, and why the NBC broadcast network still matters.

Sharon, when you got started in 2020, you already had a core base of content and viewers from the Bravo library, and the goal was to broaden that audience. You started with poaching Love Island from CBS. Why did you go after it? I know you had developed the show when you were at CBS, but why did you think it made sense for Peacock?

Sharon Vuong: Look, it’s a massive franchise. One of the best fandoms in unscripted is the Love Island fandom. Those are hard to come by. I always felt like there was unreached potential to that show and it really just needed to find the right home. It was a godsend that it was available.

What could you do for Love Island at Peacock that couldn’t be done on a broadcast network?

S.V.: We could do more days a week. We could lean into the cheekiness of it, like what they were able to do across the pond at ITV, where there are fewer content restrictions for broadcast. There was a need to build at Peacock, and we felt like Love Island was a perfect format to build. It offered a playground for us to reimagine it for streaming.

Last season, Love Island exploded in popularity. What triggered that growth?

S.V.: Love Island Games really set the groundwork. That was the first iteration of the competitive version of Love Island. It’s the idea of treating the show like it’s a sporting experience, like the Olympics in a way. The producers have taken all the learnings from Love Island Games and integrated that into seasons six and seven. We leaned into having the cast take ownership of their decisions. We layered in the competitive nature of U.S. sensibilities. If you look at the different iterations of the franchise, ours is very different. We build to these big moments. That all started with Love Island Games.

As important as Love Island and The Traitors have been to building the Peacock streaming offering, Bravo content is still the base on which it’s all built. Rachel, talk me through how you define what makes a Bravo show in 2026. What makes it different from a pure Peacock original or docu-soaps you might find on other streamers?

Rachel Smith: The Bravo stew is humor; earned drama, not gratuitous drama; the Bravo wink, which is the ironic wink at the audience so they know they’re in on the joke; and the meme-able moment. For a show to succeed, it has to be — and it can sound a bit trite using this word — authentic. We start with real people living real lives who know each other and are engaged with each other, whether that’s the backdrop of a docu-soap like Below Deck or the Housewives. It has to be rooted in the real world. And it has to have social currency and pierce through and become part of the conversation. Whether it’s a Top Chef or more of a format, we do have a recipe.

You’ve got about two dozen different Bravo shows. When you decide to launch a new series, or an extension of an existing franchise, how do you set about making sure it’s going to fit into your universe? How do you make sure you’re not just repeating yourselves?

R.S.: We’re constantly looking at surprising new subcultures. We’re looking at the whole tapestry that is the country: We want to be in the middle of the country; we want to be coastal. We want to be representative of a broad swath of America. And then we’re looking for the right aspirational and glamour ingredients and they can come in lots of different guises. This is escapist, fun, enjoyable TV for people, so we really need to make sure we’re delivering on those fronts.

The Housewives franchise is now two decades old, and it’s become this institution. What’s the process like now for figuring out when to launch a new edition like The Real Housewives of Rhode Island and then where to locate it? Has it become like the NBA or Major League Baseball, where cities are pitching themselves to be the home of a new Housewives series?

R.S.: We’re really being led by how compelling the cast is and how long they’ve known each other. If that comes in a surprising or unexpected package or place, all the better. There’s a level of curiosity that will help to fuel interest. In the last decade, other cable networks have trod in Atlanta and L.A. and New York over and over again. We see the whole of the U.S. as our fishing ground for really dynamic and diverse characters.

How did that play out with regard to Rhode Island?

R.S.: When we started casting, the casting director said, “There’s this one woman, and she literally lives right on the water, and she jumps in her boat, and she goes to lunch with her friends. She uses her boat like a car.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s a great visual.” The Rhode Island cast went to grade school together; their parents are friends. That can’t be underestimated.

These days, are you more interested in launching new shows or keeping your existing franchises fresh?