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
Carsey-Werner producers
Marcy Carsey,
Tom Werner and
Caryn Mandabach. Laybourne was the company's founder, chairwoman, and CEO, remaining with the channel until the NBCUniversal sale. The company's subscription network Oxygen launched on February 1, 2000. Oxygen's first headquarters were at
Battery Park City in
New York City, near the
World Trade Center. During the
September 11 attacks, the network temporarily went off the air; a simulcast of
Time Warner Cable-owned regional news channel
NY1 was carried by Oxygen's channel space until the studio reopened within a week after the attack. Oxygen's operations were later consolidated at
Chelsea Market, a former
Nabisco factory at 15th Street and
Ninth Avenue in New York City. 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. Several original reality series targeting women also aired on the network, including
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. Oxygen launched with immediate
DirecTV carriage at launch, and was added to
Dish Network in early 2006, during that provider's carriage conflict with
Lifetime.
Acquisition by NBC Universal In August 2007, rumors emerged that
NBCUniversal 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). On October 9, 2007, NBC Universal announced it would be acquiring Oxygen for $925 million. 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, including Laybourne and president of programming Debby Beece, with Gersh transitioning to roles at other NBCU divisions (including
The Weather Channel, and later
NBC News). 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 "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 several series in development, such as ''
Coolio's Rules and Dance Your Ass Off''. 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. The June 29, 2009 premiere of
Dance Your Ass Off was Oxygen's highest-rated series premiere at the time, with an average of 1.3 million viewers. A
high definition simulcast feed launched in March 2011. 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. 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 moved to Oxygen. In April 2014, as part of a gradual refocusing 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".
Refocus on true crime and Versant spin-off In December 2016, it was reported that NBCUniversal was considering rebranding 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. 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 rebranded channel that could be led by reruns of the programs. In January 2017, the network also began a related foray into
podcasting, with the true crime series
Martinis & Murder. In February 2017, NBCUniversal confirmed that it planned to reformat Oxygen with a focus on true crime programming aimed towards
women. The change was accompanied by a larger rebranding later in the year, with a new
police tape-inspired logo. 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. Berwick stated that the network had not determined the fate of its non-crime programming, such as
Bad Girls Club, after the full rebranding took effect. In November 2024, Comcast announced its intent to spin off most of NBCUniversal's cable properties (including Oxygen) into a new public company, now known as
Versant. ==International==