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A home shopping host is the on-air host that partners with guests on television shopping channels, such as HSN, QVC, Jewelry Television and ShopHQ. The job of a home shopping host is to introduce new presenters and guests to the television audience, and help these guests explain the values and features of the product being showcased.
Back in 1977, Clearwater, Florida radio station owner Lowell 'Bud' Paxson was collecting money from local companies that advertised on his station. One local company, a hardware store owner, refused payment, insisting that not one single customer had heard the broadcast of his radio advertisements. Paxson and the store owner argued back and forth, eventually coming to a compromise: Instead of a financial payment, the store owner gave Paxson a box filled with electric can openers. Paxson took the box, and returned to the radio station.
When the station's talk radio host, Bob Circosta, was on a newsbreak, Paxson asked Circosta to sell these can openers to his audience. Circosta initially objected, but soon complied with his Paxson's wishes. "I looked at him like he had three heads," Circosta said, recalling the moment. "I thought it would be unethical because I was trying to be a serious host." When Circosta returned to the airwaves, he began describing the can openers and asking listeners to buy them. All 112 can openers were purchased in under an hour. [1]
Sensing the sales potential of live, on-air product selling, Lowell 'Bud' Paxson and financier Roy Speer co-founded a local cable TV channel (channel 52 on Vision Cable) in 1982 that sold products directly to Florida viewers, and then launched nationwide in 1985. The channel was the Home Shopping Club, later Home Shopping Network, and Paxson's former radio man Bob Circosta was tapped as the network's first-ever host. HSN soon became a billion dollar enterprise and began the home shopping / electronic retailing industry. In 1996, the two sold HSN to Hollywood executive Barry Diller.
In addition to Bob Circosta, other early home shopping hosts were Alice Cleveland, Bobbi Ray Carter, Tina Berry, Dan Dennis, John Cremeans, Maven Huffman and Lisa Robertson.
On all the major television shopping channels, the home shopping host will stay on the air for one to three hours at a time, welcoming several new guests and demonstrating many new products. Since products and guests are often only given 10 or 15 minutes to sell their product in the world of home shopping, it's not uncommon for a host to be required to introduce 20 or more different products and inventions during their shift. Being quick-witted, personable, and likeable is essential for a host, as well as being able to make quick transitions from one product to another. Additionally, with networks like HSN and QVC routinely debuting brand new inventions and products, the host must also quickly articulate to the audience why the item is worth purchasing.
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All the national American home shopping channels are broadcast live, 24 hours a day, so mistakes and errors cannot be edited out. This has led to some memorable on-air home shopping bloopers, such as a QVC demonstrator falling from a ladder and getting injured, or a Shop at Home host insisting that a moth in a photograph is actually a horse.
Many of the guests who accompany the home shopping host on-air are not particularly TV-savvy or experienced, so the host must help guests better define the attributes and value of the items being showcased.
Because of the large influx of guests and products, hosts often lack the time to study the product beforehand, which increases the need for an effective host to possess sufficient verbal skills to mask this lack of direct product knowledge.
Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented entertainment programming. It rebranded as i: Independent Television on July 1, 2005, converting into a general entertainment network featuring recent and older acquired programs. The network adopted its identity as Ion Television on January 29, 2007, and airs programming in daily binge blocks of one program, usually acquired procedural dramas. The network also carries some holiday specials and films before Christmas.
QVC is an American free-to-air television network and a flagship shopping channel specializing in televised home shopping, owned by Qurate Retail Group. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States, QVC broadcasts to more than 350 million households in seven countries, including channels in the UK, Germany, Japan, and Italy, along with a joint venture in China with China National Radio called CNR Mall.
HSN, an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Qurate Retail Group, which also owns catalog company Cornerstone Brands. It is based in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, Florida, United States.
Lowell White "Bud" Paxson was an American media executive. In 1982, Paxson and his business partner, Roy Speer, co-founded the Home Shopping Club. He later established Pax TV in 1998, a television network focusing on family-friendly content.
America's Store was a US shopping television network. It was the spin-off channel to the Home Shopping Network (HSN). On April 3, 2007, America's Store ceased broadcasting permanently.
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WWDP is a television station licensed to Norwell, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of ShopHQ. It is owned by WRNN-TV Associates alongside Foxborough-licensed WMFP. Through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WWDP's spectrum from a tower off Pleasant Street in West Bridgewater. WWDP's studios are located on Bert Drive, also in West Bridgewater.
John Cremeans is one of the first on-air home shopping hosts in the home shopping industry. From 1985 to 2020, Cremeans's worked for 35 consecutive years as a national television host, with over 35,000 live television hours, over $2 billion dollars in sales and over 100,000 product presentations. Cremeans returned to HSN as a guest from 2012 through 2016, and has been a guest presenter on EVINE, QVC UK, QVC Italy and HSE24 Germany.
The Shop at Home Network was a television network in the United States, owned and operated by the E. W. Scripps Company from 2002 to 2006, then by Jewelry Television. It primarily aired home shopping programming. During Scripps' ownership, some shows simulcast on sister channels.
Shopping channels are a type of television program or specialty channel devoted to home shopping. Their formats typically feature live presentations and demonstrations of products, hosted by on-air presenters and other spokespeople who provide a sales pitch for the product. Viewers are also instructed on how they can order the product. Shopping channels may focus primarily on mainstream merchandise, or more specialized categories such as high-end fashion and jewelry. The term can also apply to channels whose programming consists exclusively of direct-response advertising and infomercials.
WNPX-TV is a television station licensed to Franklin, Tennessee, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the Nashville area. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company alongside CBS affiliate WTVF. WNPX-TV's transmitter is located near Cross Plains, Tennessee.
USA Broadcasting was an American television broadcasting company owned by the veteran entertainment industry executive Barry Diller. This company was the over-the-air broadcasting arm of USA Networks. Before founding USA Broadcasting, Diller was a helper in Gulf+Western's failed Paramount Television Service and News Corporation's new Fox Broadcasting Company that was launched on October 9, 1986.
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Bob Circosta is an American businessman and TV host. He is television's first ever home shopping host and has achieved over one billion dollars in personal product sales on live television. His offices are in Clearwater, Florida, just a few miles from the Home Shopping Network (HSN)'s corporate building.
Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Buy.com and Amazon.com, as well as traditional mail order and brick and mortar retailers as Hammacher Schlemmer and Sears, Roebuck and Co. Home shopping allows consumers to shop for goods from the privacy of their own home, as opposed to traditional shopping, which requires one to visit brick and mortar stores and shopping malls.
Joy Mangano is an American inventor and entrepreneur known for inventions such as the self-wringing Miracle Mop. She was the president of Ingenious Designs, LLC, and appeared regularly on the U.S. television shopping channel HSN until her departure in late 2018. Mangano is the founder and CEO of Clean Boss, a company that develops and sells cleaning products.