Home Shopping Network

Cable television's Home Shopping Network is finding imitation neither flattering nor sincere.The innovator of couch-potato shopping says that a number of fledgling companies have tried to take advantage of its popularity, success and good name.International Home Shoppers Club, At Home Shopping Network, Home Shopping Center and National Home Shoppers all have lost court battles with the original company, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.Now, Home Shopping Network Inc., which is based in St. Petersburg, Fla., is trying to wrest its mark from a company that was incorporated in Maryland and lists its address as 1498-M Reisterstown Road in Baltimore.

First there was culture, then came the counter-culture and after that, for want of a better name, the counter-counter-culture arrived. It's the latter that's on view in the exhibition Antagonism, Hacks and Hoaxes at Maryland Art Place and, true to the show's name, it's a bit infuriating. Curated by Michael Benevento, a board member of the downtown Current Gallery, the show brings together about 20 artists and artists' collectives who together set out to mercilessly lambaste American popular culture with edgy artworks that are basically pranks, jokes or parodies.

NEW YORK -- Ever since he was reborn one New Year's morning in a Las Vegas casino hotel, Lowell White Paxson has felt God's hand guiding him.Now "Bud" Paxson, the multimillionaire co-founder of the Home Shopping Network, is mingling faith and fortune in a new venture.At noon today, he launches Pax TV, the seventh broadcast network after ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB and UPN. (Locally, Comcast customers can see Pax TV on Channel 51. Other viewers may be able to see Pax on Channel 66 out of Washington or Channel 60 out of Martinsburg, W.Va.

NEW YORK -- Ever since he was reborn one New Year's morning in a Las Vegas casino hotel, Lowell White Paxson has felt God's hand guiding him.Now "Bud" Paxson, the multimillionaire co-founder of the Home Shopping Network, is mingling faith and fortune in a new venture.At noon today, he launches Pax TV, the seventh broadcast network after ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, WB and UPN. (Locally, Comcast customers can see Pax TV on Channel 51. Other viewers may be able to see Pax on Channel 66 out of Washington or Channel 60 out of Martinsburg, W.Va.

LAUREL -- Caveat emptor cayennet pepptor. Buyers for the Home Shopping Network beware the hot pepper sauce from Jean Carson's kitchen. "Jean's Flame Thrower" -- stationed next to the automatic seat-lowering toilet -- makes Tabasco sauce taste like a snow cone.Maybe one night we'll see Jean Carson's mug and pitch hawking "Flame Thrower" on the Home Shopping Network. This Washington woman's midlife hobby could grow from five, sample bottles inside Laurel's National Guard Armory to 50,000 bottles sold on national TV. But until then, Carson needs a few brave mouths.

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Home Shopping Network Inc. is expected to name former Fox network chief Barry Diller chairman as early as next week, according to a person close to the company.The appointment is part of a plan by Tele-Communications Inc. President John Malone to improve profits at the No. 2 home-shopping channel, which has lagged behind QVC Inc. in recent years. TCI, the nation's largest cable company, is a major investor in Home Shopping Network.A more profitable HSN would provide Mr. Diller -- who ran QVC until last year -- with the cash he needs to turn his small television network, Silver King Communications Inc., into a major broadcaster, analysts said.

Lerner gives up portfolio controlMNC Financial Inc. Chairman Alfred Lerner, who is also chairman of Progressive Corp. in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, has ceded control of the insurance holding company's investment portfolio to Progressive's chief executive, Peter Lewis, the company said yesterday.The move came four months after Progressive stockholders raised questions about large fees Mr. Lerner received between 1989 and 1991 for managing the $2.2 billion portfolio. Neither the company nor Mr. Lerner commented on the reason for the change.

Attention, local couch consumers: You're going to need cable TV for your round-the-clock fix of Home Shopping Network, as the consumer channel has agreed to sell its Baltimore broadcast station for $80 million.United Television Inc. of Beverly Hills, Calif., will buy WHSW, Channel 24, and most likely convert it into a UPN network affiliate. That will restore UPN -- home of "Star Trek: Voyager" -- to Baltimore's airwaves just as the current UPN affiliate switches to another network.Home Shopping Network had already been planning to move its shopping services off broadcast channels and onto cable over the next 12 months.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Home Shopping Network Inc. and Tele-Communications Inc. said yesterday that they would form a joint venture to market cable-television programs abroad.The venture, to be called Home Shopping Network International, will be Home Shopping's first foray outside the United States, where its shop-at-home programs have been highly successful."We are convinced that there is enormous opportunity to develop TV retailing beyond the U.S.," said Gerald Hogan, Home Shopping's president and chief executive.

Nothing irritates Phil Beuth, president of ABC's early-morning and late-night programming, more than people who say the post-"Nightline" experiment he is about to launch is a clone of the Home Shopping Network.Mr. Beuth says "Nightcap," which will allow viewers to obtain discount prices on merchandise by calling an 800-number, will be just the opposite since its aim will be to get shoppers back into retail stores, rather than luring them away.On Oct. 19, ABC will begin a four-to-six-week market test of "Nightcap," an hour-long entertainment and variety show.

LAUREL -- Caveat emptor cayennet pepptor. Buyers for the Home Shopping Network beware the hot pepper sauce from Jean Carson's kitchen. "Jean's Flame Thrower" -- stationed next to the automatic seat-lowering toilet -- makes Tabasco sauce taste like a snow cone.Maybe one night we'll see Jean Carson's mug and pitch hawking "Flame Thrower" on the Home Shopping Network. This Washington woman's midlife hobby could grow from five, sample bottles inside Laurel's National Guard Armory to 50,000 bottles sold on national TV. But until then, Carson needs a few brave mouths.

Attention, local couch consumers: You're going to need cable TV for your round-the-clock fix of Home Shopping Network, as the consumer channel has agreed to sell its Baltimore broadcast station for $80 million.United Television Inc. of Beverly Hills, Calif., will buy WHSW, Channel 24, and most likely convert it into a UPN network affiliate. That will restore UPN -- home of "Star Trek: Voyager" -- to Baltimore's airwaves just as the current UPN affiliate switches to another network.Home Shopping Network had already been planning to move its shopping services off broadcast channels and onto cable over the next 12 months.

Tim Wilson says he's "having a blast."As a 19-year-old college dropout, Wilson founded Jet Blast Inc., a company that uses water power to do everything from cleaning industrial waste to washing cars. Today, the 36-year-old Baltimorean is seeing annual revenue of $6 million -- and aiming for much more.Starting with a water blaster and a used van, Wilson has created a $3 million industrial cleaning company with 300 customers in Maryland, including Baltimore Gas and Electric and Bethlehem Steel.

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Home Shopping Network Inc. is expected to name former Fox network chief Barry Diller chairman as early as next week, according to a person close to the company.The appointment is part of a plan by Tele-Communications Inc. President John Malone to improve profits at the No. 2 home-shopping channel, which has lagged behind QVC Inc. in recent years. TCI, the nation's largest cable company, is a major investor in Home Shopping Network.A more profitable HSN would provide Mr. Diller -- who ran QVC until last year -- with the cash he needs to turn his small television network, Silver King Communications Inc., into a major broadcaster, analysts said.

He's bald. He's glamorous. He's building the next television network. And though most people didn't realize it at first, Barry Diller is doing it using Baltimore as a key building block.This is true because one of the details widely overlooked when the TV tycoon agreed to buy working control of Silver King Communications Inc., an obscure Florida company whose 12 UHF stations mostly run the Home Shopping Network, is that one of those stations is WSHW-TV, Channel 24, in Baltimore. So as Mr. Diller sets out to shake up the TV business, Baltimore will be near the epicenter.

Remember her? How could you forget her? She dominated your life like a Colossus of Toads. She was ... AIYYYYYEEEEEEEEE! ... Mom. Not your mom or my mom, but the mom we measured our moms against and by whose standards we found ours wanting. She was the '50s myth of Mom, the Meta-mom, the Robo-Mom who got up and put on her freshly pressed dress, stockings and heels and went cheerily down to the kitchen at the crack of dawn to fix bacon 'n' eggs for the family, her eyes glittery as Home Shopping Network diamonds, her smile like a crack in a nuclear reactor leaking incandescence into the atmosphere.

Tim Wilson says he's "having a blast."As a 19-year-old college dropout, Wilson founded Jet Blast Inc., a company that uses water power to do everything from cleaning industrial waste to washing cars. Today, the 36-year-old Baltimorean is seeing annual revenue of $6 million -- and aiming for much more.Starting with a water blaster and a used van, Wilson has created a $3 million industrial cleaning company with 300 customers in Maryland, including Baltimore Gas and Electric and Bethlehem Steel.

Direct mail is about to become even more direct.Eight catalog retailers are bypassing the post office and beaming their merchandise right into homes. Catalog 1, the new cable shopping channel developed by Time Warner and Spiegel that hits the airwaves in four test markets on March 28, features the wares of eight well-known retailers with sophisticated direct-mail operations.The channel debuts at a time when consumer complaints about cluttered mailboxes are growing louder and angrier and electronic retailing threatens to make catalogs obsolete.

Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. is going high-tech -- joining a growing number of firms who are giving buyers access to their listings by computer or telephone.Starting next week, buyers will be able to browse by telephone through the company's 18,000 listings -- 4,500 in the metro area -- or learn more about a particular property, all without talking to a salesperson.Long & Foster, based in Fairfax, Va., is recording descriptions of its listings and letting buyers listen to them through its Hot Line telephone system, which is expected to start March 6. The company will also put code numbers on for-sale signs so buyers can call and learn more about a home that they've seen.