Company Oxygen Media
Date Announced 4/3/2000
Site Chelsea Market, 9th Avenue and 16th St.
Total Subsidy $1.5 million

Amount tied to job creation

???
Promised Job Creation ???
Promised Job Retention ???
Length of Contract ???
Competing Sites none
Conditions none
Notes The city offered $1.3 million in sales tax exemptions and $243,000 in energy savings to help the women's cable TV and internet firm expand operations and add another 36,000 square feet of office space to its Chelsea Market headquarters. The company ran into trouble in the summer of 2000, putting two of its cable shows on hiatus and temporarily laying off 12 staff. The company faces tough going, with well-established competition on both the cable and internet side, making it a risky bet that the city's subsidies will have desired the long-term job creation effect.



In late 2000 - early 2001, Oxygen fired 95 of its employees.
Corporate Notes
Critics
A note on sources -- or why many of these profiles appear incomplete. They are. Good Jobs New York compiled the numbers in these profiles from press releases and news accounts of the deals. Unfortunately, more detailed information on these subsidies is very difficult to obtain -- even though it should be readily available to the public. In many cases, neither the company nor the city nor state released certain information, particularly the terms of the agreement, i.e., the conditions which the company had to meet in order to receive the subsidy. It should also be noted that the value of the subsidy may not end up being equal to the value estimated at the time of the agreement. And it should not be assumed that the actual number of jobs retained and created will be the same as the numbers predicted.

Because the public deserves easy access to information about how taxpayer dollars are being spent, Good Jobs New York will update these profiles as we uncover more information.

Good Jobs New York  - May 25, 2001