Oxygen (branded on air as Oxygen True Crime) is an American television network owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division and business segment of NBCUniversal (NBCU), a subsidiary of Comcast. The channel primarily airs true crime programming and dramas targeted towards women.
The network was founded by Geraldine Laybourne and Oprah Winfrey, and carried a format focused on lifestyle and entertainment programming oriented towards women, similar to competing channels such as Lifetime. NBCU acquired the network in 2007; under NBCU ownership, the network increasingly produced reality shows aimed at the demographic, and was relaunched in 2014 to target a "modern", younger female audience. After the network experienced ratings successes with a programming block dedicated to such programming, Oxygen was relaunched in mid-2017 to focus primarily on true-crime programs. The channel initially operated as a cable network; in 2022, Oxygen began to also operate as a digital multicast television network on subchannels of NBC Owned Television Stations.
As of November2023[update], Oxygen is available to approximately 59,000,000 pay television households in the United States, down from its 2012 peak of 80,000,000 households.[1] Under its current format, the network primarily competes with Investigation Discovery and HLN.[2]
History
Until 2004, the entire word was in smaller case letters.
The privately held company Oxygen Media was founded in 1998 by former Nickelodeon executive Geraldine Laybourne, talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, media executive Lisa Gersh, and producers Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach (of Carsey-Werner fame).[3] Laybourne was the service's founder, chairwoman, and CEO, staying with the channel until the NBCUniversal sale. The company's subscription network Oxygen launched on February 1, 2000.
The network's operations were later consolidated in the Chelsea Market, a former Nabisco factory at 15th Street and Ninth Avenue in New York City. Oxygen's operations are now based at 30 Rockefeller Plaza as part of Comcast's consolidation of its newly owned NBC Universal properties.
The channel originally began as an interactive service focusing on original programming with some reruns (such as Kate & Allie), and featured a black bar at the bottom of the screen (referred to as "the stripe", occupying the bottom 12% of the screen) which would show various information (the interactive part involved the channel's website); the technique was cloned by Spike's precursor The New TNN; the stripe was eventually dropped. Prior to 2005, the channel carried a limited schedule of regular season WNBA games produced by NBA TV. The channel later began to focus chiefly on reality shows, reruns, and movies. For a time during the talk show's syndication run, Oxygen aired week-delayed repeats of The Tyra Banks Show. The yoga/meditation/exercise program Inhale was the last inaugural Oxygen program on air into the channel's NBC Universal era, albeit in repeats; it was cancelled in 2010.
On October 9, 2007, NBC Universal announced it would be buying Oxygen from The Walt Disney Company for $925 million.[5] The sale was completed on November 20, 2007. NBC Universal's cable division announced at an industry upfront presentation on April 23, 2008, that the channel would rebrand and unveil a new logo on June 17, 2008;[6][7] in the months since the sale the Oh! heading was dropped from the channel's visual branding. The logo premiered one week early on June 8, 2008.
Following the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast and the last-minute replacement of its subscription channel Style Network with Esquire Network (which was originally intended to replace G4) on September 23, 2013, some of its acquired programs were dispersed to Oxygen.[8]
Oxygen logo (2014–2017)
In April 2014, as part of a gradual re-focusing of NBCU's women's pay-TV networks by new division head Bonnie Hammer, and the appointment of Frances Berwick as the head of Oxygen and sister network Bravo, it was revealed that Oxygen would undergo a shift in its programming strategy to focus on a "modern", young female audience. Berwick explained that the new slate, which included upcoming series such as Fix My Choir, Funny Girls, Nail'd It, Sisterhood of Hip Hop, Street Art Throwdown, and planned spin-offs of Preachers of L.A., would "deliver on the freshness, authenticity, high emotional stakes and optimism that this demographic is looking for", and that many of the new programs would "appeal to things that are important in the lives of young, millennial women" and be "authentic".[9][10] As part of the re-focusing, the network also introduced a new slogan, "Very Real".[10]
Refocus on true crime
In December 2016, it was reported that NBCUniversal was considering reformatting Oxygen as a true crime-oriented channel. Since 2015, the genre had seen growing interest, especially among young adult women. The network had introduced a primetime block known as Crime Time on Fridays through Mondays (anchored by series such as Snapped), which had helped Oxygen see a 42% increase in total viewership, and a 22% increase among women 25–54.[11] NBCUniversal had reportedly been in talks with Dick Wolf—producer of NBC's Law & Order and Chicago franchises—to take an equity stake in a re-branded channel that could be led by reruns of the programs.[12][13] In January 2017, the network also began a foray into podcasting, with the true crime series Martinis & Murder.[14]
In February 2017, NBCUniversal confirmed that it planned to re-format Oxygen with a focus on true crime programming aimed towards women. The change was accompanied by a larger re-branding later in the year, with a new logo featuring the Oxygen name rendered in the style of yellow police tape.[15][16] Oxygen's new lineup was built largely around its existing library of unscripted true-crime programming, such as Snapped and its various spin-offs. NBCUniversal Lifestyle Networks president Frances Berwick explained that they had not ruled out adding off-network reruns of police procedurals, such as the Chicago, CSI and NCIS franchises as well (with the latter two having already been aired by the network by that time).[17][11][18] Berwick stated that the network had not determined the fate of the network's non-crime programming, such as Bad Girls Club, after the full re-branding takes effect.[11][18]
During its upfront presentations, Oxygen unveiled other new crime programs that were in development for the upcoming season, such the new Dick Wolf series Criminal Confessions, a docuseries on the murder of Jessica Chambers co-produced with NBCUniversal-funded BuzzFeed,[16] and a new season of Wolf's Cold Justice (which had been cancelled by TNT).[11][18] In September 2017, Oxygen and USA Network acquired off-network reruns of Chicago P.D., which were added to their schedules in October 2017.[19][20]
International
On October 17, 2024, NBCUniversal announced an agreement with Bell Media to launch a Canadian version of Oxygen on January 1, 2025. The channel will be a relaunch of its similarly-formatted Investigation Discovery, following Bell's loss of rights to Warner Bros. Discovery factual channel brands to Rogers Media.[21]
Peep Show (as the first US telecaster; the UK sitcom was initially paired with the Canadian Show Me Yours as a Saturday-night provocative comedy bloc.)
Oxygen HD was launched in March 2011 as high definition simulcast feed, eventually becoming the main feed with the standard definition feed being originated at the cable provider headend through downscaling. It is available through most providers.[25]
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E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable television network. It is owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The channel focuses primarily on pop culture, celebrity based reality shows and movies.
Esquire Network was an American pay television network that was a 50/50 joint venture between NBCUniversal and the Hearst Corporation. Launched on October 1, 1998 as Style Network, a spin-off of E!, the channel initially consisted of fashion, design, and urban lifestyle-themed programming. In 2008, Style shifted its programming towards personality-centric reality shows. The network was relaunched as Esquire Network on September 23, 2013; said rebrand was supposed to be on G4, but that was given to Style due to G4's low ratings. As Esquire Network, the channel focused on travel, cooking, sports and fashion, and also aired reruns of popular sitcoms and dramas.
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Comcast and is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan in New York City.
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Geraldine Laybourne is an American entrepreneur and former TV executive. She worked at Nickelodeon from 1980 until 1996, when she became the president of Disney-ABC Cable Networks. She is also the co-founder of Oxygen Media and a tech startup called Katapult. In 2020, she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
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Snapped is an American true crime television series produced by Jupiter Entertainment which depicts high profile or bizarre cases of women accused of murder. Each episode outlines the motivation for murder, whether it be revenge against a cheating husband or lover, a large insurance payoff, or the ending to years of abuse, with each murder's circumstances as unique as the women profiled.
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