PriMedia Inc
PriMedia Inc is a media buying and marketing firm based in Rhode Island, U.S. The company was founded by Edward Valenti and Barry Becher, and helped pioneer infomercials, the use of credit cards and 800 numbers on Television ads, and the 30-minute infomercial format on shopping channels . James J. Cooney, who was a teenager when he first met the firm's co-founders, later joined the firm. History PriMedia was founded in 1975 (then named Dial Media) by Edward Valenti and Barry Becher. PriMedia became the first major infomercial company and launched several mainstream products including the Ginsu knives. The company also developed the “long-form” infomercial formats, which later developed into standard half-hour infomercial formats used in Home shopping channels including QVC and HSN. Primedia was one of the first to use toll-free telephone numbers in television ads to allow use of credit cards to order products in real-time. The company is a media buying and marketing fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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RentPath
RentPath Inc. is a media company that owns Rent.com, ApartmentGuide.com, Lovely, and Rentals.com, which combined see 16 million visitors each month. It was previously called K-III and PriMedia. The company was acquired by Redfin in April 2021. History The company was founded in 1989 as K-III Communications Corporation by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. In 1989, it acquired Macmillan Book Clubs and Gryphon Editions (renamed Newbridge Communications) and Intertec Publishing from Macmillan Inc. and Webb Publishing from Maxwell Communications Corporation. In 1990, it acquired Ward's from Thomson Corporation It also acquired the business publications of Andrews Communications, Readers Garden, operator of special interest book clubs, and ''Weekly Reader'' and Funk & Wagnalls from Marshall Field 5th. In 1991, it acquired 9 magazines from News Corporation for $600 million: ''Daily Racing Form'', ''Soap Opera Digest'', '' Soap Opera Weekly'', ''New York'', '' Seventeen'', ''Premiere'', '' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Television Ad
A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. Advertisers and marketers may refer to television commercials as TVCs. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately-owned television networks. During the 2010s, the number of commercials has grown steadily, though the length of each commercial has diminished. Advertisements of this type have promoted a wide variety of goods, services, and ideas ever since the early days of the history of television. The viewership of television programming, as measured by companies such as Nielsen Media Research in the United States, or BARB in the UK, is often used as a metric for television advertise ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Warwick, Rhode Island
Warwick ( or ) is a city in Kent County, Rhode Island, the third largest city in the state with a population of 82,823 at the 2020 census. It is located approximately south of downtown Providence, Rhode Island, southwest of Boston, Massachusetts, and northeast of New York City. Warwick was founded by Samuel Gorton in 1642 and has witnessed major events in American history. It was decimated during King Philip's War (1675–1676) and was the site of the Gaspee Affair, the first act of armed resistance against the British, preceding even the Boston Tea Party, and a significant prelude to the American Revolution. Warwick was also the home of Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, George Washington's second-in-command, and Civil War General George S. Greene, a hero of the Battle of Gettysburg. Today, it is home to Rhode Island's main airport, T. F. Green Airport, which serves the Providence area and also functions as a reliever for Logan International Airport in Bos ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Real-time Computing
Real-time computing (RTC) is the computer science term for hardware and software systems subject to a "real-time constraint", for example from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within specified time constraints, often referred to as "deadlines". Ben-Ari, Mordechai; "Principles of Concurrent and Distributed Programming", ch. 16, Prentice Hall, 1990, , page 164 Real-time responses are often understood to be in the order of milliseconds, and sometimes microseconds. A system not specified as operating in real time cannot usually ''guarantee'' a response within any timeframe, although ''typical'' or ''expected'' response times may be given. Real-time processing ''fails'' if not completed within a specified deadline relative to an event; deadlines must always be met, regardless of system load. A real-time system has been described as one which "controls an environment by receiving data, processing them, and returning the results sufficiently quic ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Credit Card
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the other agreed charges). The card issuer (usually a bank or credit union) creates a revolving account and grants a line of credit to the cardholder, from which the cardholder can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance. There are two credit card groups: consumer credit cards and business credit cards. Most cards are plastic, but some are metal cards (stainless steel, gold, palladium, titanium), and a few gemstone-encrusted metal cards. A regular credit card is different from a charge card, which requires the balance to be repaid in full each month or at the end of each statement cycle. In contrast, credit cards allow the consumers to build a continuing balance of debt, subject to interest being charged. A credit car ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Television Ad
A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. Advertisers and marketers may refer to television commercials as TVCs. Advertising revenue provides a significant portion of the funding for most privately-owned television networks. During the 2010s, the number of commercials has grown steadily, though the length of each commercial has diminished. Advertisements of this type have promoted a wide variety of goods, services, and ideas ever since the early days of the history of television. The viewership of television programming, as measured by companies such as Nielsen Media Research in the United States, or BARB in the UK, is often used as a metric for television advertise ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Toll-free Telephone Number
A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing prefix similar to an area code. The specific service access varies by country. History The features of toll-free services have evolved as telephone networks have evolved from electro-mechanical call switching to computerized stored program controlled networks. Originally, a call billed to the called party had to be placed through a telephone company operator as a collect call, often long-distance. The operator had to secure acceptance of the charges at the remote number, or even transfer that decision to a long-distance operator, before manually completing the call. Some large businesses and government offices received large numbers of collect calls, which proved time-consuming for operators and the callers. Manual toll-free systems Pri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Home Shopping Network
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. Based in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, the home shopping channel has former and current sister channels in several other countries. History The forerunner of HSN was launched by Lowell Paxson (who later established PAX-TV, which is now Ion Television) and Roy Speer in 1982 as the Home Shopping Club, a local cable channel seen on Vision Cable and Group W Cable in Pinellas County, Florida. It expanded into the first national shopping network three years later on July 1, 1985, changing its name to the Home Shopping Network, and pioneering the concept of a televised sales pitch for consumer goods and services. Its competitor and future owner QVC was launched the following year. The idea for HSN had its roots in a radio station managed by Paxson. Due to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Home Shopping
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. There are three main types of home shopping: mail or telephone ordering from catalogs; telephone ordering in response to advertisements in print and electronic media (such as periodicals, TV and radio); and online shopping. The study shows that home shopping are continuously preferred by the customers especially for those teleworkers and busy working class. History The possibility for merchants to show their goods through the world was t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ginsu
Ginsu () is a brand of direct marketed knives, owned by Scott Fetzer Company, a Berkshire Hathaway Company, that was made popular in the United States by being sold on television using infomercials characterized by hawker and hard sell pitch techniques. The ads fueled sales of between two and three million Ginsu sets between 1978 and 1984. History Ginsu knives were originally called ''Quikut''. The Quikut division of Scott Fetzer Company was located in Fremont, Ohio. Because the brand name "Quikut" lacked panache, Ed Valenti, Barry Becher, and copywriter Arthur Schiff created a new brand name that alluded to the exceptional sharpness and durability of a Japanese sword. As Valenti told the ''Palm Beach Post'' in 2011, "The challenge was to position the product so that it made every other knife you owned obsolete." The resulting Ginsu ads copied the hard sell direct marketing techniques of carnival hawkers that pioneering TV pitchman Ron Popeil had adapted to the medium i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Infomercial
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of direct response television (DRTV), they are often ''program-length commercials'' (long-form infomercials), and are typically 28:30 or 58:30 minutes in length. Infomercials are also known as paid programming (or teleshopping in Europe). This phenomenon started in the United States, where infomercials were typically shown overnight (usually 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.), outside peak prime time hours for commercial broadcasters. Some television stations chose to air infomercials as an alternative to the former practice of signing off, while other channels air infomercials 24 hours a day. Some stations also choose to air infomercials during the daytime hours, mostly on weekends, to fill in for unscheduled network or syndicated programming. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shopping Channel
Shopping channels (also known in British English as teleshopping) 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. The concept was first popularized in the United States in the 1980s, when Lowell "Bud" Paxson and Roy Speer launched a local cable channel known as the Home Shopping Club—which later launched nationally as the Home Shopping Network (HSN). It later gained competition from QVC, who would eventually acquire HSN in 2017. Home shopping channels origin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |