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Mike Reynolds
The stakes to reach female viewers grew higher last week as Oxygen Media firmed up distribution and programming plans, while an as yet-unnanmed entry from Turner Broadcasting System Inc. officially threw its hat into the distaff ring.
Geraldine Laybourne's Oxygen Media, which will launch its cable network on Feb. 2, 2000, secured a $100 million strategic investment from Vulcan Ventures, giving Paul Allen's investment arm a reported 7% stake in Oxygen and a seat on its board. Vulcan joins other Oxygen investors: Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Entertainment Group; CWM LLC, an entity formed by TV giants Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach; America Online and ABC.
As part of the deal announced June 16, the fledgling cable TV and Internet firm also secured carriage on Allen's Charter Communications that will give it analog position on basic or expanded basic tiers. Charter systems currently have some 2.3 million subs and it has pending agreements to buy systems reaching another 3.6 million homes. Earlier in the week, Oxygen, which announced shows with Candice Bergen and Winfrey, scored a carriage agreement with MediaOne that will deliver more than 1 million subs at launch.
Previously, Oxygen had signed an affiliate contract with AT&T Broadband & Internet Services for some 7 million subs, predicated on the women's service inking other pacts encompassing 5 million other homes.
In the Turner camp, executives, at a press presentation at the National Cable Show in Chicago, revealed programming concepts and announced that its license fees will be lower than those sought by Oxygen, which fall into the 18-25 cents range per subscriber.
Expected to launch sometime early next year with a companion Web site, the Turner network, led by Pat Mitchell, president of CNN Productions and Time Inc. Television, will serve up information and non-fiction fare, deploying the magazine content of its partners Time Inc. and Advance Publications across six basic categories.
The moves come as women's market leader Lifetime Television sharpens its focus under former NBC executive Carole Black and Romance Classics, the spin-off channel from Rainbow Media's American Movie Classics, announced that it would lift its sub base to 28 million through a deal with MediaOne covering 3 million analog homes.
At a meeting with reporters at the National Show, Laybourne said that Oxygen will spend $400 million on programming over its first five years and is offering cable operators a $1 per-subscriber launch fee or a free year of carriage.
During the presentation, Oxygen officials revealed that partner Winfrey is developing a Sunday night interview show based on more in-depth conversations with the various people she has had on her syndicated daytime talk show over the years. Winfrey, whom Laybourne said will be the "voice" of Oxygen, will also appear with friend Gayle King in a dozen segments informing viewers about cyberspace called Oprah Goes Online. Earlier, Oxygen announced that Bergen will host Exhale, a nightly talk show.
Offering all-original fare at launch, Oxygen's lineup will be daypart-driven, centering on 90-minute and two-hour programming blocks, instead of the typical TV model of half-hour programs. Among the offerings: Inhale, an hour-long morning yoga session; The Hive, a live, 90-minute morning block; Ka-Ching, a midday block demystifying personal finance; Tribes, a two-hour afternoon block targeting girls 12-17; Oxygen.comedy; an early-evening block of interstitials, sketches, game shows and an upside-down talker called The Chat Show; Oxygen Prime, an evening block comprising movies, and Exhale.
As for the Turner distaff channel, TBSI chairman Terry McGuirk would not discuss rate-card specifics, but did intimate it would not be as high as Oxygen's. "There will be a difference. The license fee will be low. We know the realities of the environment," he said, adding that the network will take analog or digital carriage, but obviously prefers the former. "I want analog if I can get it."
The Turner officials declined to outline their start-up budget. However, McGuirk noted that "there's no question we're going to enter into a period of unprofitability to build this."
Current program strategies call for content and information from both magazine empires to be expressed across a variety of dayparts, rather than in specific title form. Mitchell's presentation revealed the following banners and categories: Making Tracks - tracing personal and business travel; Have Your Fill - food and culinary matters; Personal Best - health and fitness; Uncommon Ground - homing in on home and hearth; World of Women - an array of attitude and lifestyle material; and The Look - fashion fare and tips. "It's a network that can tell you why Kosovo is important to you and what's the best buy in mascara," said Mitchell.
Although there is some duplication, Time Inc. has titles reaching 40 million women, while Advance's Conde Nast group hits home with 60 million females.
Couldn't Turner launch this network by tapping synergies and titles all within its corporate family? "It's like if you have the Atlanta Braves (owned by Turner) and receive an offer to get the New York Yankees, you take both," said Mitchell. "We could have done this with Time Inc. alone, but this alliance allows us to add richness to Time's great magazines."
Asked if the possibility of a Conde Nast-based segment outrating a Time Inc.-driven program was a factor in building a lineup sans specifically titled shows, Mitchell said: "That's part of it. The question we're asking is whether it makes more sense to use various elements across a variety of programming rather than running, say, The Vogue or In Style Fashion Show. We're moving toward that, at least with the Time Inc. titles now."
As the battle for shelf space unfolds, some in the cable industry believe that these services could ultimately merge. Indeed, some maintain that the news about Turner's network, which began to leak several months ago, was aimed at gaining an equity stake in Oxygen.
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