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Oxygen (TV network)

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History

The privately held company Oxygen Media was founded in 1998 by Geraldine Laybourne, talk show host Oprah Winfrey and producers Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach (of Carsey-Werner fame). The company's cable network Oxygen, (formerly featuring Oh! above the main channel title), launched on February 2, 2000.

The network originally began as an interactive network 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" it occupied 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. Today, the stripe has long been dropped, and the network focuses chiefly on reality shows, reruns, and movies, and airs week-after repeats of The Tyra Banks Show. The yoga/meditation/exercise program "Inhale" remains the only inaugural Oxygen program to continue to air into the network's NBC Universal era, albeit in repeats.

Campus Ladies, Bliss, Oprah After the Show, Talk Sex with Sue Johanson, The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, Snapped , Girls Behaving Badly and The Bad Girls Club, a reality series, are some of the signature shows on the channel. Geraldine Laybourne is the channel's founder, chairman, and CEO. Competitors to the channel include Lifetime and We. Oxygen has been available on DirecTV for many years, and arrived on the Dish Network in early 2006.

On October 9, 2007, NBC Universal announced it would be purchasing Oxygen for $925 million. 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 network would see a rebranding and new logo on June 17, 2008 , and in the months since the sale the Oh! heading was dropped from the channel's visual branding. The logo was premiered a week early on June 8, 2008.

Programming

Original programming

Syndicated programming

See also

References

External links



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Last updated on Friday July 11, 2008 at 06:38:13 PDT (GMT -0700)
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