Oxygen is an American pay television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming unit 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 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.
As of February 2015, 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]