The Back Fence, 21st Century Style

Don’t look for straightforward sitcoms or dramas on Oxygen: When it makes its cable debut Feb. 2, it will have the feel of what has traditionally been daytime TV, even in prime time.

The day will kick off with “Inhale,” a “high-energy yoga” program in the morning for women to do while making kids’ lunches or changing diapers. It will end with “Exhale,” a Candice Bergen talk show.

In between, there is an afternoon “Trackers,” which “celebrates teen girl power”; sketch comedy such as “Shavonne’s World,” a comedy chat show starring Tasha Smith; and the signature “Pure Oxygen.”

The two-hour program, which will be shown three times a day, including prime time, will be a talk show running the gamut of parenting, relationships, style, money, consumerism, education, health, fitness, the arts, pets, sports and careers, says executive producer Roni Selig.

Topics will be derived from what users are talking about on the Oxygen Web sites, which range from the health site Thrive to Moms Online and ka-Ching, a small-business and personal finance site. To give it more of a real-world feel, even such off-air staffers as researchers are expected to go on-air talking about categories that come up for discussion, such as pregnancy or divorce, if they’re going through such events.

On weekends, there will be a sports show, “We Sweat”; a shopping show, “shE-Commerce”; music on “Radar”; a late-night celebrity “Pajama Party” talk and variety show hosted by Katie Puckrik; and “Oprah Goes Online.”

Whether Los Angeles viewers will get to participate in the TV portion of the chat remains to be seen. Laybourne says Oxygen is still working on launching in some portion of the Charter Communications’ systems in Los Angeles; Charter owner Paul Allen owns a minority stake in Oxygen. As for other Los Angeles-area systems, Laybourne says, “We’re working on it.” Carriage in other cities is spotty: New Yorkers won’t probably see the channel at launch, but many Chicagoans will.

Potential viewers got their first clue to the attitude of the shows in November and December, when Oxygen’s first ad campaign popped up on the airwaves, on Los Angeles billboards and at New York bus stops, proclaiming reasons why it’s good to be a woman. “No back hair,” quipped one that had some women rolling their eyes.

Oxygen says the ads--which included “First on the Lifeboats,” a baby being coached to say “Dada” and saying “Mama” instead, and a picture of an action figure with the words “Knowing that action figures are really dolls”--were a funny celebration of women. But not everyone in the target audience agreed: Some saw them as male-bashing; others just wondered what the spots had to do with a network meant to be a place to make women feel great about all the things they can do.

“Women use humor to deal with every aspect of life,” says Linda Ong, senior vice president of marketing. “We wanted the brand personality to come across in the ad campaign.”

“We love men,” adds Tricia Melton, vice president of consumer marketing. “We actually believe that we embrace men in a really warm way. We’re being a little cheeky.”

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The channel was named Oxygen because founder Geraldine Laybourne, who led Nickelodeon to powerhouse status among kids, woke up gasping for breath one night and thought “what women need is a little oxygen, breathing room, to be without the encumbrances and stresses that seem to be so prevalent,” says Ong.

The channel and Web site combination is focused on “releasing the energy of women to do great things,” she says. “It represents a very strong point of view about our audience. We respect them and look up to them.” She adds, ‘It’s not that women don’t have problems, but we don’t think women have to be defined by them.”

An ad during the Jan. 30 Super Bowl, when spots are going for $3 million, is up next; Oxygen declines to say what the message will be.

As part of its awareness-building, Oxygen has been touring the country in an “Oxygen tank tour” and talking with women, asking them why it’s great to be a woman. The reasons that have come back have ranged from “the ability to give life” to a 15-year-old who said, “Because I am always right,” said Melton.

Oxygen says it is not reaching for women of any particular age group but for what it calls a “psychographic” of women who are constantly reinventing their lives.

Laybourne says that when she looked at the cable landscape, she didn’t see an outlet for women that was really on their side, reflecting in a positive way a sense of fun and smartness. What she wanted to do couldn’t have happened even just five years ago, she says. But changes in technology have made it possible for a channel that will be a “co-creation with the audience,” she says, replacing the “old back fence” they used to have for connecting with other women.

The high profile of the Oxygen launch is a mixed blessing, Laybourne says: It has allowed her to attract talented people and strong investment but has increased the pressure. The programming will evolve, she says, as the producers see what works and what doesn’t. “We’re going to be futzing with this forever,” she says.