The channel launched on February 1, 2000, under the ownership of Oxygen Media, a consortium including Geraldine Laybourne and Oprah Winfrey among other stakeholders. It originally carried a format of lifestyle and entertainment programming oriented towards women. Oxygen Media was acquired by NBC Universal in 2007 for nearly $1 billion, after which the channel began to place a stronger focus on targeting young adult women. 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 and crime dramas.
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]
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).[2] 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.
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.
In August 2007, rumors emerged that NBC Universal had made offers to acquire Oxygen, with the network reportedly recommending that Bravo Media head Lauren Zalaznick lead the network post-acquisition. It was reported that the network had been pursuing offers of at least $1 billion (referred to internally as "BET money", in reference to Viacom's earlier acquisition of the channel).[5] On October 9, 2007, NBC Universal announced it would be acquiring Oxygen for $925 million.[6]
The sale was completed on November 20, 2007, with Zalaznick appointed head of Oxygen. NBCU cable head Jeff Gaspin stated that Oxygen would be marketed to advertisers alongside sister properties targeting an "upscale" female audience, such as Bravo, iVillage, and Today. Some of Oxygen's executives departed during the integration, with Laybourne and president of programming Debby Beece both stepping down, and Gersh transitioning to roles at other NBCU divisions (including The Weather Channel, and later NBC News).[7][8]
In April 2008, during its first upfronts under NBCU ownership, Oxygen announced a planned rebranding to take effect that June. This would include a new logo and slogan ("Live Out Loud"), establishing women 18-49 (with a particular emphasis on a "young, trend-obsessed" women 18–34) as the network's target demographic, and relaunching its website with a larger focus on video content from its shows. It also announced upcoming series in development, such as Coolio's Rules and Dance Your Ass Off.[9][10] During the 2008 Summer Olympics, Oxygen aired a two-hour block of coverage on weekday evenings as part of NBC Sports' overall coverage. Oxygen focused primarily on coverage of the gymnastics competitions.[11][12]
The June 29, 2009 premiere of Dance Your Ass Off was Oxygen's highest-rated series premiere to-date, with an average of 1.3 million viewers.[13] A high definition simulcast feed launched in March 2011.[14] On May 21, 2013, the premiere of the Bad Girls Club spin-off Bad Girls All-Star Battle became Oxygen's highest-rated series premiere to-date, with 1.73 million viewers. With a Bad Girls Club: Atlanta reunion special as a lead-in (which drew a series high of nearly 2 million viewers), Nielsen estimated that Oxygen had achieved its highest-rated night of key demographic viewership to-date, and the top two programs on cable that evening.[15]
Following the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast and the last-minute replacement of its sister 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.[16]
Oxygen logo (2014–2017)
In April 2014, as part of a gradual re-focusing of NBCU's women's cable networks by new division head Bonnie Hammer, and the appointment of Frances Berwick as the head of Oxygen and 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".[17][18] As part of the re-focusing, the network also introduced a new slogan, "Very Real".[18]
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.[19] 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.[20][21] In January 2017, the network also began a related foray into podcasting, with the true crime series Martinis & Murder.[22]
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 new police tape-inspired logo.[23][24] Oxygen's new lineup was built largely around its existing library of unscripted true-crime programming (such as Snapped), and reruns of police procedurals such as the CSI and NCIS franchises.[25][19][26] 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.[19][26]
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,[24] and a new season of Wolf's Cold Justice (which had been originally cancelled by TNT).[19][26] In September 2017, Oxygen and USA Network acquired off-network reruns of Chicago P.D., which were added to their schedules in October 2017.[27][28]
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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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