 | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Nationwide |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Picture format | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | NBCUniversal |
| Parent | NBCUniversal Cable |
| History | |
| Launched | January 1, 2006 (2006-01-01) |
| Replaced | Trio |
| Closed | February 1, 2017 (2017-02-01) (11 years, 31 days) |
| Former names | Sleuth (2006–2011) |
Cloo (stylized ascloo), formerly known asSleuth, was an Americanpay televisionchannel owned and operated byNBCUniversal which aired programming originally dedicated to thecrime andmysterygenres, though it often fell out of this format in its later years with a more generic selection of series and films, and was used as an example ofchannel drift and superfluouschannel bundling, presenting series easily found through other venues. The channel launched on January 1, 2006, replacingTrio. It ceased broadcasting on February 1, 2017.[1][2][3]
As of February 2015[update], approximately 25,495,000 American households (21.9% of households with television) received Cloo, though this declined with later removals by several cable services as carriage agreements expired.[4]
Cloo focused on mystery entertainment, with the majority of the channel's programming sourced from fellow Comcast networks such asNBC andUSA Network. As of 2016[update] the network's schedule was made up mostly of repeats of current USA Network series, and marathons of acquired series from theLaw and Order,NCIS, andCSI franchises, along with the originalMacGyver andHouse. Films from the NBCUniversal library or acquired as part of USA Network's film rights purchases were also part of the schedule, meaning films having nothing to do with crimes or mysteries, such asEnchanted,The 40 Year-Old Virgin andBee Movie aired on the network.[5]
On August 15, 2011Cloo was rebranded from its former name ofSleuth, in order for NBCU to be able to trademark and own the name, as the word "clue" itself is too common a name to be trademark-able and the commonness of both "sleuth" and "clue" would not work forsearch engine optimization. In addition, the different spelling averted any confusion withHasbro's board gameClue.[6][7]
On August 10, 2013, Cloo was dropped byDish Network, which cited that most of the network's rerun-centric programming was duplicative of that available on other networks and streaming services.[8] A year later on August 18, 2014, it was removed fromVerizon FIOS for the same reason.[9]
Charter Communications (Spectrum,Bright House Networks andTime Warner Cable) effectively ended the channel's life in January 2017, as withEsquire Network (another Comcast/NBCU network which was discontinued on June 28, 2017), when it refused to continue their carriage of Cloo within their new carriage agreements with NBCUniversal, removing around 2/3 of the network's homes (bringing it down to 8.5 million households[10]), and NBCU already had been looking to remove extraneous channels without original programming since the summer of 2016, criteria which Cloo, Chiller, and Esquire fell into.[11][12] In the end, however, industry media had little to no notice of the closure, and only cable providers learned of its demise in advance on January 31 as of 5:59 a.m. ET from Comcast, due to the small amount of time which passed between Charter's settlement of their new NBCUniversal carriage agreement and the channel's closure. Because the channel was effectivelyautomated with little to no promotions to maintain, no employees were affected by the channel's closure.
The same morning, its social media presences were removed, and the website redirected to the USA Network site without any notice. The network's last programming day consisted of a full-series marathon ofSyfy'sContinuum, a final sign of its later channel drift. Following the end credits, a slide was shown, with the Cloo logo and the words "GOOD NIGHT!" underneath, along with "Thank you for watching Cloo", the NBCUniversal logo, and the name of the satellite that provided Cloo's broadcast (AMC 10, Transponder 7) in between two NBC logos, along with the common NBC off-air audio test using thenetwork's trademark chimes.[5][13] The end of Cloo was coincidental with another Comcast announcement that the female-focusedOxygen would be switched to atrue crime focus the same day within the coming months.
On September 17, 2011, Cloo premiered two original series, which were cancelled after their first seasons.
The channel originally featured crime and mystery programming from NBCUniversal's extensive library of feature films, classic television shows, reality series and documentaries. Programming initially included popular and cult television series such asSimon & Simon,Miami Vice,The A-Team,Dragnet (1967–70 version),Emergency!,Adam-12,Knight Rider,The Equalizer,Homicide: Life on the Street,JAG,Profiler,Magnum, P.I.,The Rockford Files,The Burning Zone and more recent canceled series such asEZ Streets,Karen Sisco, andDeadline,Conviction, andMedical Investigation. Much of this older programming eventually migrated to sister digital subchannel networkCozi TV.
As Sleuth, it also aired mystery and suspense films such asScarface,The Jackal,Casino,Sneakers andMercury Rising.
On February 25, 2007, the channel aired a fourteen-hour movie marathon entitled "Chiller On Sleuth" to promote the launch ofChiller, a sisterhorror andsuspense programming that launched four days later on March 1; The movies that aired during this marathon areWait Until Dark,Psycho,I Saw What You Did (the 1988 version), andThe Island. Also, before this, on February 23 and 24, 2007, a preview of Chiller aired onThe 101 Network (which is at channel 101 onDirecTV).
In January 2009, all shows from the lineup were removed and replaced with mainlyNBCUniversal-produced,USA Network original shows,Monk andIn Plain Sight to its lineup, running marathons of each program's episodes.NCIS was added to the channel's lineup, as well as two Canadian series,Da Vinci's Inquest andCold Squad, which werebarter syndication series which were mainly prevalent on low-tier local television stations and digital subchannel networks such asRetro TV. TheLaw & Order franchise also joined the channel. It also aired another Canadian series,The Eleventh Hour. It aired instead asBury the Lead, to avoid confusion withEleventh Hour, a 2008 CBS series based on aBritish series unrelated to the Canadian concept.
Besides the above-mentioned series and franchises, various other series aired from theNBCUniversal library with rights through USA Network aired on Cloo, along withWalker, Texas Ranger before its 2015 departure toGrit andINSP. In September 2014, the rights toCOPS previously held by now-defunct sister networkG4 moved over to Cloo until new episode partner Spike (nowParamount Network) took all control of the cable syndication rights ofCOPS at the start of 2016.