They hope you'll need oxygen; Upstart channel takes the fun, witty approach to women's cable programming

NEW YORK - While you're waiting for the elevator to the studios of the Oxygen cable network, there are two TV screens to look at. One is showing Oxygen; the other, an overhead view of whoever's in the elevator. If you don't want the passengers to know you've been staring at them, look away when the traffic signal - the one mounted next to the elevator - turns yellow. Welcome to the consciously quirky world of Oxygen. The women's channel, which was recently added to 310,000 area homes of Time Warner Cable (Channel 73), has a joke-cracking yoga instructor on its workout show, an omnipresent black stripe on-screen where Oxygen staffers type in snarky comments during "Xena: Warrior Princess," and programs with titles like "Visible Panty Lines" and "The Sunday Night Sex Show." While the leading cable channel for women, Lifetime, is noted for its dramas and true-life stories about women triumphing over adversity, a recent edition of the daily talk show "Pure Oxygen" featured comics Stephanie Miller and Joe Piscopo plugging a goofy "dogamentary" film and interviewing its "star," a Shih Tzu named Chelsea. "We're not looking at life with a woe-is-me attitude," says Oxygen's chief executive, Geraldine Laybourne. "Our audience thinks of us as bold, optimistic and witty." By offering lighthearted fare served with a side of knowing irony, Oxygen hopes to be the alternative that makes women laugh, as opposed to Lifetime, which makes them cry. This fall, Candice Bergen will appear in a new "real people" series for Oxygen in which, among other things, she rides a street luge through downtown Los Angeles and interviews a man who freeze-dries deceased pets. That same, almost programmatic zaniness runs through Oxygen's other talk shows, which star fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, actress and author Carrie Fisher and comedian Tracey Ullman (her "Visible Panty Lines" returns at 9:30 tonight). All of this has not yet added up to many viewers (see sidebar). But that's not for lack of publicity or star power. Thanks to its high-profile investors - notably Oprah Winfrey, who holds a 25 percent "founder's stake" in the channel - Oxygen has gotten more press in its first two years than the Weather Channel did in 20. Many women learned about Oxygen from a darling TV commercial in which infant girls in a hospital nursery defiantly toss off their pink caps to Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman." These viewers, however, may have been surprised to tune in and see a not-so-liberated schedule of talk shows, stale movies and even staler reruns ("Love, American Style," anyone?). That's not uncommon for an upstart cable channel. Because of the huge costs involved in launching a network and persuading cable operators to carry it, Oxygen couldn't afford to make Lifetime-style movies even if it wanted to. It does, however, have the power of Oprah. This week's announcement of a new series, "Oprah After the Show," should make Oxygen a destination channel for new viewers when the show launches Sept. 16. "Oprah After the Show" will be a half-hour of bonus material taken from the same "Oprah" program shown earlier that day in syndication (it airs locally on KMBC-TV). In a press release, Winfrey promised she and her guest will "kick off our shoes," with a looser format than the one-hour "Oprah" show. An Oxygen publicist said Winfrey literally plans to kick off her shoes and bring her two cocker spaniels on stage for "After the Show." Though Oprah is a television legend, Oxygen's CEO is nearly as legendary in the TV business. Gerry Laybourne runs Oxygen from an unpretentious corner of the channel's combined studios and offices, built on the site of an old Nabisco factory in New York's historic Chelsea Market. Sitting at a simple round table, she exudes both warmth and professionalism. At 55, she is confident about where she has been and where she's going. And she's not shy about invoking her past when talking about the future. It was 1980 when Laybourne, a former elementary teacher, joined the kids' channel Nickelodeon. She rose to general manager and, by emphasizing fun and creativity, turned Nick into a cable phenomenon. One of her early achievements was expanding the channel to 24 hours by creating Nick at Nite. With its mix of cheekily promoted reruns, Nick at Nite popularized "classic TV," one of the most influential concepts in cable history. Combined with the playful spirit of daytime Nick, Laybourne shaped a personality for her channel. That, she says, is what she's trying to do with Oxygen. "What we're doing now is getting witty," Laybourne says. "It's much harder to get witty with women than it is to get witty with kids. It takes a long time to develop a hit." "Rugrats," she notes, came along seven years after she took over Nick. Laybourne says 80 percent of the new shows she's developing are comedies, and she has some star power to draw on here as well. Marcy Carsey, Tom Werner and Caryn Mandabach built Hollywood's most successful independent TV studio on such hits as "The Cosby Show" and "Roseanne." The three own part of Oxygen and are creating new comedy shows for it. Oxygen also gets to air "Roseanne" reruns starting next year. As for her most famous investor, Laybourne seems determined to, as she puts it, "Oxygenate Oprah." Last month Winfrey appeared in an Oxygen spot, gamely trying to promote herself as a wild and wacky woman. It looked, frankly, contrived. Still, it's hard to imagine Winfrey not giving the new show her all, even if it plays to a much smaller audience than the one watching "Oprah." Not every Oxygen program will strive for yuks. The channel has a fair amount of what could be called empowerment TV. Documentary filmmakers Rory Kennedy and Liz Garbus are behind a short-run series, "Sixteen," focusing on the real-life stories of teen-age girls. It premieres at 6 p.m. Sunday. Oxygen also airs WNBA games formerly seen on Lifetime, as well as women's pro golf, tennis and volleyball events, and a magazine show with profiles of female athletes. The channel's online service, oxygen.com, hopes to empower women through interactivity. The Web site is doing extensive polling of its users and more on-air polls are planned for this fall. Viewer polls have paid off for the Web sites of ESPN and CNN, but those networks play to much larger audiences than Oxygen does. So how will Oxygen increase its audience? One key is getting into as many homes as possible. Lifetime reaches virtually the entire cable and satellite audience of 87 million U.S. homes. Until recently Oxygen was available in only about 20 million homes. That number has since doubled, as operators like Time Warner Cable have added it to their lineups. Given the great success of that other women's channel, Laybourne says, that says something about Oxygen. "Lifetime is doing a great job of serving its audience," she says, smiling warmly. "The heartening thing is that cable operators have recognized the need for something else." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com Women's cable choices begin with Lifetime Lifetime isn't just cable's top-rated network among women - it's the country's most popular cable channel, with more viewers than Nickelodeon, USA Network or TBS. On average, every night, about 1.7 million adult women watch Lifetime's mix of original movies, "Golden Girls" repeats and inspiring true-life stories. And now a spinoff channel, Lifetime Movie Network (LMN), is quickly becoming a hit. Among "women's channels," these have the highest prime-time averages: Lifetime, 1,958,000 viewers (channel is offered in 85 million homes). LMN, 185,000 (23 million homes). WE (Women's Entertainment), 138,000 (46 million homes). SoapNet, 123,000 (23 million homes). Oxygen, 64,000 (42 million homes). @ART CAPTION:Women's cable choices begin with Lifetime @ART:Graphic @ART CREDIT:Source: Nielsen Media Research, May 2002 @ART CAPTION:Oh, the insanity: At left, Oxygen host Tracey Ullman (left) clowns with guests Cindy Crawford and Mell Campbell on "Visible Panty Lines"; below, the host of Oxygen's "The Isaac Mizrahi Show" goes bowling with actress Juliette Lewis. @ART CREDIT:Oxygen Media @ART CAPTION:Oprah Winfrey @ART:Photos (3, color and b/w)