Features

NEW YORK — Oxygen, the cable television network for women that began with great fanfare two years ago, is barely being seen. 

During March, the first month that Nielsen Media Research has measured Oxygen’s ratings, the network was watched by an average of 63,000 people during prime-time. 

That compares to the 2.4 million people watching Lifetime, its chief competition, during the same period, according to Nielsen. 

Oxygen, the brainchild of former Nickelodeon executive Geraldine Laybourne and backed by investors like Oprah Winfrey, initially had trouble finding cable systems to carry it. It’s now available in 40 million of the nation’s 100 million television households. 

“We grew from 14 million to 40 million in less than a year,” spokeswoman Laura Nelson said Monday. “There’s just no way that ratings can follow that kind of explosive growth.” 

There’s usually a lag between when networks show up on cable or satellite systems and when viewers get used to watching it, she said. 

Nelson said the unusually low ratings won’t cause Oxygen to change its programming plans.