'Bad' Is Good for Oxygen

Anyone who's seen the premiere of Oxygen's unscripted series The Bad Girls Club, in which the aptly named Ripsi embarks on an F-bomb-laced tequila bender that ends in the assault of a sleeping roommate, would be forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled across a special episode of Cops in which the perps are all attractive young women. It may not be empowering, but Bad Girls is drawing a young female audience that advertisers find hard to resist.

As Oxygen noted during its first-ever upfront presentation last week, since its December premiere, Bad Girls is delivering the network's youngest audience ever, with a median age of just under 30. The most recent installment (Jan. 23) notched a 1.12 rating among women 18-34, a historic high for Oxygen, while delivering a 1.47 among women 18-24.

"We like to say that if you can't be a good example, be a really bad example," said Oxygen president and COO Lisa Gersh. "We're proud of Bad Girls. Not everything has to be empowering to be Oxygen."

While Gersh said that Oxygen's target demo continues to be women 18-49, the network is taking a calculated approach to reaching the younger end of the spectrum. "Shows that skew younger, like Bad Girls and Janice Dickinson [Modeling Agency] are important for us because there aren't a lot of networks that deliver women in that 18-34 range," she said.

Oxygen's new pilot slate suggests that the net will be even more aggressive in courting younger female viewers, with four docu-soaps in various stages of development. The net also plans to launch an animated series, Angry Little Girls, and a romantic comedy to be developed by Quentin Tarantino's production company.

"Even though you may risk losing the high end [of the demo], you more than recapture that in ad dollars," said Brad Adgate, senior vp and corporate research director, Horizon Media. "If you go a little younger you can charge more of a CPM because you're reaching an elusive, attractive demo."

Last year, Oxygen wrote more than $100 million in ad sales, Gersh said, adding that the net is "generally targeting 30 percent growth" in 2007. Gersh anticipates growth in categories that aren't traditionally female-centric, including financial services and technology.

But reality isn't always a sexy proposition. "With reality, you court people who aren't sensitive to programming restrictions, like [direct response] advertisers," said Larry Novenstern, executive vp, director of national electronic media, Optimedia. "Edgy can backfire."