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Why Andy Cohen Almost Cancelled ‘Real Housewives of Orange County’ Before It Even Debuted · Direct From Hollywood with Ryan Seacrest

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Direct from Hollywood with Ryan Seacrest.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: It's been eighteen years since The Real Housewives franchise debuted
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: and changed reality TV forever, and Andy Cohen has a
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  Speaker 2: lot to do with its success over the years, as
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: he was the guy who gave a green light to
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: the original pitch made by an ad exec and he's
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: been a producer on the show ever since. And Andy
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  Speaker 2: tells The Hollywood Reporter it wasn't obvious in the early
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  Speaker 2: days the franchise would be a success. In fact, the
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  Speaker 2: Real Housewives of Orange County, the very first series, almost
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  Speaker 2: never made it to air. Andy says, we almost pulled
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  Speaker 2: the plug on the first season. The production team we
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: hired would rave about all the great scenes they were
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: getting on tape, and then we'd watched it and it
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  Speaker 2: was just underwhelming. We had a meeting to talk about
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  Speaker 2: the financial loss if we wound up killing the Real Housewives.
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  Speaker 2: By that time, we were four hundred thousand dollars in
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  Speaker 2: so we decided to push forward. Good thing they did.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: You can catch Andy and watch What Happens Live week
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  Speaker 2: nights on Peacock
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  Speaker 1: That's direct from Hollywood.