 | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Nationwide |
| Programming | |
| Language | English |
| Picture format | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | NBCUniversal |
| Parent | NBCUniversal Cable |
| History | |
| Launched | January 1, 2006; 19 years ago (2006-01-01) |
| Replaced | Trio |
| Closed | February 1, 2017; 8 years ago (2017-02-01) |
| Former names | Sleuth (2006–2011) |
Cloo, formerly known asSleuth, was an Americanpay televisionchannel owned and operated byNBCUniversal which aired programming originally dedicated to thecrime andmysterygenres, though in its later years it occasionally aired series and films unrelated to these genres, 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, and closed 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. By 2016, the network's schedule was made up mostly of repeats of 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, 2011, Sleuth was renamed asCloo 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 removed 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) removed the channel with its services in January 2017, as withEsquire Network (another Comcast/NBCU network which was closed 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 and reducing to 8.5 million households.[10] 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 closure in advance on January 31 as of 5:59 a.m. ET from Comcast, due to the limited amount of time between Charter's settlement of their new NBCUniversal carriage agreement and the channel's sudden closure. Because the channel was effectivelyautomated with little to no promotions to maintain, no employees were affected by the channel's closure.
On February 1, 2017, its social media presences were removed, and the website redirected to the USA Network site without any notice. The network's last broadcast day consisted of a full-series marathon ofSyfy'sContinuum. Following the end credits of the last episode, 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] Shortly after Cloo's shutdown, NBCUniversal announced that the female-focused networkOxygen would be refocused as atrue crime channel to fill a void left by Cloo's closure, which occurred several months later.
On September 17, 2011, Cloo premiered two original series, both of 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,Deadline,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 (1988 remake), andThe Island. Also, before this, on February 23 and 24, 2007, a preview of Chiller aired onThe 101 Network (which was 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 rights to broadcast were expired in 2015, and moved toGrit andINSP. In September 2014, the rights toCOPS previously held by now-defunct sister networkG4 moved to Cloo until Spike (nowParamount Network) became sole owner of the cable syndication rights ofCOPS (which aired new episodes following its 2013Fox cancellation) in early 2016.