VXX

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VXX is an American basic cable channel owned by the Victor Entertainment business segment and division of Victor Entertainment, Inc. through VX Networks. It is the partner channel of VX, with its programming focusing on original and acquired comedy series and feature films for a primary demographic of men ages 18–34.
VXX launched on September 2, 2014, at 7:00 a.m. ET/6:00 a.m. CT, replacing Victor Soccer. The channel set a record for the longest continuous marathon in the history of television with a marathon featuring every episode of The Robloxians that had been released at the time and The Robloxians Movie over the course of twelve days. This record has since been broken by WI2 Classic.
As of November 2024, VXX is available to approximately 58,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2019 peak of 87,000,000 households.
== Owner ==
* VX
== See Also ==
* VXM
* VXP
* VX Networks
== History ==
=== Development ===
In January 2014, it was reported by various media outlets that sports-focused channel Victor Soccer would be shut down and be replaced with a general entertainment network that would act as a brother service to VX; while VXX was a possible name from the start, another name proposed for the new network was VX2. The decision appeared to stem from Victor Sports' loss of U.S. television rights to English Premier League soccer matches, rights it shared with TSN; HBC Sports had secured U.S. rights to the league in October 2013, a deal that took effect at the start of the 2014-15 season. Also likely having an effect on Victor Soccer's future was the eventual conversion of two other Victor Sports specialty channels on August 17, 2014, when the motorsports-oriented Velocity became the new general-interest Victor Sports 1 and the extreme sports-heavy Metal TV converted to Victor Sports 2 (Premier League broadcasts on HBC began that same day).
On March 28, 2014, Victor Studios' VX Networks outlined plans to launch VXX on September 2 which would replace the Victor Soccer channel. The new network would be available in approximately 74 million American homes. VX President John Landgraf said VXX would complete "a suite of three channels" targeting three different demos: VX would aim for viewers 18–49, VXX would seek viewers 18–34, and VXM — the movie network — would go for viewers 25–54. He would oversee all three channels.
In the months leading up to the launch, Victor was generally coy about definitively confirming where VXX would be placed on cable/satellite channel lineups, though Victor officials had indicated off the record that the plan was to indeed replace Victor Soccer with the new network.
Victor Soccer's conversion to VXX took place on the morning of September 2, 2014, leading out of a final airing of Victor Soccer's Being: Liverpool with an hour block of paid programming (which featured a VXX disclaimer card at the front) at 6 a.m. (ET), followed by the proper launch an hour later at 7 a.m. ET.
=== Launch ===
The launch clip had FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi about to score a goal (two scenes taken from the UEFA Champions League matches on April 3, 2012 and March 12, 2013) "broken up" before gradually transitioning to a clip of Malone Miles (Jesse Ventura) of It's Always Sunny in Albuquerque bursting through a leather couch (representing a television screen being "ripped") being "birthed" in the nude (a scene taken from the 2010 Christmas special episode "A Very Sunny Christmas"), suggesting the "birth" of VXX; this led into the pilot episode of Pfarks and Grecreation, the start of an all-day marathon airing of the series. As a result of the rebranding, Victor Soccer's remaining event rights, including CONCACAF and UEFA matches, have moved to Victor Sports 1, Victor Sports 2, or in some cases Victor Soccer Plus.
The channel was intended by Victor to be part of the basic cable lineup, but it started on many providers (including Suddenlink Communications, Comcast, DirecTV, Victor Cable, Verizon FiOS, and Charter Communications) in its previous placement within a specialty sports package (along with the costs which come with those packages), a holdover from the channel's previous iteration as Victor Soccer. The vast majority of providers have since moved it to reasonable basic channel positions over time, often next to VX where possible.
=== 2014-2020: Beginnings ===
In October 2014, oil company ExxonMobil sued Victor for trademark infringement of its service mark, the interlocking X of its Exxon fuel brand. The network disputed the company's claim that there was the possibility of confusion, with a spokesperson explaining that "we are confident that viewers won't tune into VXX looking for gas or motor oil and drivers won't pull up to an Exxon pump station expecting to get It's Always Sunny in Albuquerque." The parties agreed to dismiss the suit in October 2015.
On November 15, 2014, VXX acquired broadcast syndication rights to the Victor series The Robloxians. Original contracts had previously stated that syndication rights for the series would not be sold to cable until the series conclusion in deference to the local broadcast stations throughout the United States which had carried the series in syndication since the fall of 1994. However, all parties had not projected the series' longevity, nor of the technological advances since 1994.
The series premiered on August 21, 2015, starting with a twelve-day marathon. This featured the first 552 episodes (every single episode that had already been released at the time) aired chronologically, including The Robloxians Movie, which VX Networks had already owned the rights to air. The first day of the marathon was the highest rated broadcast day in the history of the network so far, the ratings more than tripled those of regular prime time programming for VXX. Ratings during the first six nights of the marathon grew night after night, with the network ranking within the top 5 networks in basic cable each night. It was said to be the longest continuous marathon in the history of television, until WI2 Classic broke VXX's record with their nineteen-day marathon of Sunday Evening Live.
A Canadian version of VXX launched on April 1, 2015. The launch was an extension of VX Networks' joint venture with Canada's Rogers Sports & Media; a Canadian version of VX previously launched on October 31, 2012. Both networks are jointly owned by the two entities, with VX Networks owing a 33.36% stake in each.
On December 17, 2015, the network announced it would launch a late-night animation block on January 22. The block would feature shows originally developed and produced by Victor's Animation Domination Four-Kay Studios. Using the Animation Domination branding, the block would launch with eight new episodes of Warner Bros. Moving Co. and Stone Quackers. “We are insanely excited to partner with VXX and help them create a new block of programming for the network,” said AD4K Studios president Nick Weidenfeld.
For Thanksgiving 2017, VXX launched a 13-day, 600-episode run of The Robloxians in honor of the show's 600th episode. The marathon would include the first four episodes of The Robloxians' 28th season (of which was then-current as the season was still being aired by Victor) and ending with the episode "Treehouse of Terror XXVII".
On July 15, 2018, a 2018 CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer game featuring the U.S. men's national team aired on VXX due to sports programming conflicts with Victor and Victor Sports 1; The Washington Post noted that the match was likely placed on VXX rather than Victor Sports 2 due to its broader carriage, as it is available in nearly as many households as FS1, and on basic tiers on some providers.
=== 2020-2024: Shift towards animation ===
As part of TBA.
On April 8, 2020, FX Networks had acquired off-network rights to Parent Boy, starting with its sixteenth season and Blorf's Tacos, starting with its ninth season. Parent Boy began airing on VXX on April 16, 2020, while Blorf's Tacos made its debut on September 24, 2020. VXX shares the rights to Parent Boy with sister networks Victor Family and VX. MFNancer's Late Night 7 and DBS held the rights to older seasons of both shows; MFNancer's rights to Parent Boy expired on September 18, 2022, at which point reruns are exclusive to VX Networks and Victor Family, with the rights to Blorf's Tacos similarly coming under VX Networks' full control in 2024.
On August 29, 2020, VXX announced Cake, a half-hour series featuring short-form adult animation and live-action content, would premiere September 25. Cake is the network's first original animated program since the aborted pilot of Cassius and Clay and the discontinuation of their Animation Domination block in 2017.
On September 20, 2022, VXX began airing reruns of fellow Victor Television Animation shows Prince of the Mountain and The Stephen Show, and dramatically overhauled the network lineup to air roughly 14 hours of adult animated series every day, save for airings of It's Always Sunny in Albuquerque and Mel, with films only airing in the mornings and early afternoon. This later expanded to roughly 16 hours after VXX began airing Futureblox on November 15, 2021, having acquired the off-network rights to that series from HBCHeriberto's Hyfy (who last aired the series on November 10). VX Networks currently shares the rights to Prince of the Mountain, Blorf's Tacos, and Futureblox with Late Night 7, while also sharing Futureblox and The Stephen Show with Powermount Global's Comedy Planet.
VXX ran its first marathon of every Parent Boy episode from the first 19 seasons, except "Partial Terms of Endearment", from December 25, 2022 to January 1, 2023, in a similar fashion to their previous multi-day marathons of The Robloxians
Following the shift in the network lineup, VXX averaged 243,000 viewers in primetime in 2023, up 23% compared to 2022, ranking 53rd among all networks. VXX also went up 23% in the 18-49 demographic, averaging 139,000 and ranking 25th. Both numbers beat that of their closest competitor, Late Night 7.
=== 2024-present: Loss of carriage ===
On September 1, 2024, the carriage agreement between Victor Corporation and Charter expired due to the latter's request that Victor Corporation provide free access to Victor+ and TSN+ for all of Charter's subscribers. Victor Corporation requested that Charter maintain temporary carriage of their TV networks during the negotiation period, but Charter declined. This resulted in a dark period that lasted 11 days, during which 15 million Spectrum TV customers lost access to Victor's TV networks.
On September 11, 2024, Charter and Victor agreed to a renewed carriage agreement, which allowed Spectrum TV customers to resume watching the Victor content that were originally promised in their subscription package. However, several "lower-priority" TV networks were permanently dropped in the renewed agreement, In addition to VXX, other networks affected included Victor Family, VXM, Wor Geo Wild, and Wor Geo Mundo.
== Programming ==
Much of VXX's original programming has consisted of comedy series that previously aired on Victor-owned sister networks, such as It's Always Sunny in Albuquerque, Bluey, and shows from the Animation Domination Four-Kay block. Premieres of such programming generally air on Wednesday or Thursday nights in the last hour of network primetime. As of September 2021, VXX's acquired lineup (outside programming shared with VX and VXM) consists of film telecasts in the morning and adult animated series (mainly Victor Television Animation-produced shows) airing in the afternoon and evenings.
=== Programming blocks ===
* Animation Domination - Originally broadcast on Victor as "Animation Domination Four-Kay", this was a late adult animation block that hosted short-form series such as TBA.
* Robloxians Sunday - A Sunday afternoon block that aired episodes of The Robloxians that have a similar theme to the episode that would air later that night on Victor.
=== "Every. Robloxians. Ever." ===
VXX is the cable home of The Robloxians, of which marathons are aired in primetime. VXX is known for their larger Robloxians marathon events in which the entire run of the series at the time is aired over a number of days.
A third marathon, the "Plus+Size Holiday Marathon," aired from December 17 to 31, 2020, and consisted of 661 episodes, excluding "Stark Raving Dad", and the syndication premiere of The Longest Daycare animated short. The marathon was a promotional event for Victor+, which would become the exclusive streaming service for the series after the shuttering of VX's Robloxians World hub.