Country | United States |
---|---|
Headquarters | Comcast Building, New York City, New York |
Programming | |
Language(s) | English |
Picture format | 1080i HDTV (downscaled to letterboxed 480i for the SDTV feed) |
Ownership | |
Owner | NBCUniversal (Comcast) |
Parent | NBCUniversal Media Group |
Sister channels | |
History | |
Founded | 1998 |
Launched | February 1, 2000 |
Founder | |
Links | |
Website | www |
Availability | |
Terrestrial | |
Digital terrestrial television | List
|
Streaming media | |
Sling, YouTube TV, fuboTV, DirecTV Stream, Hulu + Live TV | |
ClaroTV+ | (requires subscription to access content)
|
Oxygen (branded on air as Oxygen True Crime) is an American pay and over-the-air television network owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division and business segment of NBCUniversal, 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. NBCUniversal 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 February 2015 [update] , approximately 77.5 million American households (66.5% of households with television) receive Oxygen. [1] Under its current format, the network primarily competes with Investigation Discovery and HLN. [2]
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 channel's first headquarters were at Battery Park City in New York City, near the World Trade Center. It was knocked off the air on September 11, 2001; the Time Warner Cable-owned regional news channel NY1 was broadcast to all Oxygen subscribers across the country until the studio reopened within a week after the attack. [4]
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.
Campus Ladies , Bliss , Oprah After the Show , Talk Sex with Sue Johanson , The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency , Snapped , Girls Behaving Badly and Bad Girls Club , a reality series, were the highlight shows of the network at this time. Oxygen launched with immediate DirecTV carriage, and arrived on Dish Network in early 2006 during that provider's carriage conflict with Lifetime.
On October 9, 2007, NBC Universal announced it would be purchasing Oxygen 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.
For the 2008 Summer Olympics, Oxygen aired events and programming weeknights relating to gymnastics, equestrian, and synchronized swimming through NBC's Olympic broadcasts. On June 29, 2009, Oxygen premiered Dance Your Ass Off , a reality dance competition program in which overweight people dance while they lose weight; the program was cancelled after its second season due to low ratings. On April 5, 2010, Oxygen launched its second night of original programming with the fifth-season premiere of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood .
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]
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]
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]
On May 2, 2022, NBC Owned Television Stations began to carry Oxygen as a subchannel on digital terrestrial television, primarily on NBC and Telemundo owned and operated stations. [21] [22]
Oxygen programming can be seen in Canada on the CTV Drama Channel, and Fetch TV holds Australian rights with both video on demand and traditional offerings.
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. [26]
USA Network is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports cable television channels, before being relaunched under its current name on April 9, 1980. Since then, USA steadily gained popularity through its original programming, a long-established partnership with WWF/WWE and, for many years, limited sports programming that increased significantly in 2022 after the shutdown of NBCSN.
Bravo is an American basic cable television network, launched on December 8, 1980. It is owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. The channel originally focused on programming related to fine arts and film. Since the 2000s, its brand has focused heavily on reality series targeted at 25-to-54-year-old women and the LGBTQIA+ community at large.
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.
TV Land is an American pay television channel owned by Paramount Global through its networks division. Originally a spinoff of Nick at Nite consisting exclusively of classic television shows, the channel now airs a combination of recent and classic television series, original scripted series and limited theatrically released movies. The network is headquartered at One Astor Plaza in New York City.
Nick at Nite is a nighttime programming block on the American basic cable channel Nickelodeon. The programming broadcasts from prime time to late night. The block initially consisted of syndicated sitcoms and films from the 1950s to the 1970s. Nick at Nite gradually shifted its programming to primarily airing sitcoms as recent as the mid-1990s to the 2010s.
NBCUniversal Media Group is the television and streaming arm of NBCUniversal, and the direct descendant and successor of the former division NBCUniversal Television Group, which existed from 2004 to 2019.
Olympic Channel was an American pay television sports channel owned by the NBC Olympics, a joint venture between NBC Sports and the United States Olympic Committee. It was dedicated to Olympic sports, and was a franchise of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Olympic Channel operation.
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.
Investigation Discovery, stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008, is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. As of February 2015, approximately 86 million American households receive Investigation Discovery. The network is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Cloo, formerly known as Sleuth, was an American pay television channel owned and operated by NBCUniversal which aired programming originally dedicated to the crime and mystery genres, though it often fell out of this format in its later years with a more generic selection of series and films, and was used as an example of channel drift and superfluous channel bundling, presenting series easily found through other venues. The channel launched on January 1, 2006, replacing Trio. It ceased broadcasting on February 1, 2017.
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.
Chiller was an American cable and satellite television network that was owned by NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal, all owned by Comcast. It later opened its own film production company as well. Chiller specialized in horror, thriller and suspense programming, mainly films.
Universal Content Productions (UCP) is an American television production company operating within the Universal Studio Group division of NBCUniversal, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast.
Ion Mystery is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. It focuses primarily on mystery, true crime, and police/legal procedural programs.
Universal Kids is an American children's television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of NBCUniversal, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast.
Peacock is an American over-the-top video streaming service owned and operated by Peacock TV LLC, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal Media Group. Named after the NBC logo, the service launched on July 15, 2020. The service primarily features series and film content from NBCUniversal studios and other third-party content providers, including television series, films, news, and sports programming. The service is available in a grandfathered free ad-supported version with limited content, while premium tiers include a larger content library and access to additional NBC Sports, Hallmark Channel, and WWE content.