Qvc

Now it can be revealed: NBC, in a bold programming move, plans to junk its entire prime-time schedule this fall for an all-Law & Order lineup. The ratings-grabbing police-and-courtroom drama, already airing in three versions -- Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: CI -- will expand its reach even further. So get the VCR serviced and stock up on tapes. Coming in September: * Law & Ardor -- Detective Logan (Chris Noth) returns to the precinct, but finds his job complicated by his pairing with a female partner, the department's most fashionable and neurotic detective, played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

Ever since Winerd Leslie "Les" Jenkins Jr. proposed building a $20 million family fun park in Glen Burnie, some residents and legislators have worried about the traffic and noise it would bring to the clogged Ritchie Highway corridor. Those who live in the patchwork of communities hugging the Pasadena peninsula are more worried about Jenkins himself. The 53-year-old Edgemere resident is no stranger to them. They remember him as a vocal player in their bitter struggle with Edward and Missy Berge, who tried to build an auto racetrack in Pasadena three years ago. This time, he is in charge, and is searching for investors and corporate sponsors.

Ever since Winerd Leslie "Les" Jenkins Jr. proposed building a $20 million family fun park in Glen Burnie, some residents and legislators have worried about the traffic and noise it would bring to the clogged Ritchie Highway corridor. Those who live in the patchwork of communities hugging the Pasadena peninsula are more worried about Jenkins himself. The 53-year-old Edgemere resident is no stranger to them. They remember him as a vocal player in their bitter struggle with Edward and Missy Berge, who tried to build an auto racetrack in Pasadena three years ago. This time, he is in charge, and is searching for investors and corporate sponsors.

My daughter purchased an eMachines computer from QVC. Her one-year warranty has just expired, and now her tower no longer starts. The eMachines people told her she would have to pay $20 for a technical support call. She wasn't financially able to do that, so tech support wouldn't help her. There are reasons inexpensive computers are inexpensive, and one way a manufacturer can cut costs is by scaling back customer service. That's why you have to pay 20 bucks - plus long-distance charges - to get somebody live to help.

The breakneck growth at Dundalk's M&I Seafood Manufacturing Inc. has all the ingredients of your typical hometown, family-business success story.The four owners are related and started out working for a fabled Baltimore restaurant chain. Then they whipped up a crab cake recipe in the kitchen and found their fortunes selling Maryland's most cherished cuisine.But this being the end of the 20th century, there is, of course, a heavy dose of high-tech modernity behind the local company whose revenue has more than doubled in the past four years.

On Annapolis' historic City Dock yesterday, chipper hosts for a cable network shopping show hawked folding chairs, funnel cake mix, "Buffalo Milke" instant spray car wax, and a fold-away space shuttle toy one viewer called in to proclaim "the best thing since peanut butter."QVC Inc., a West Chester, Pa.-based 24-hour shopping network that claims to reach more than 70 million households, filmed a live show in the state capital, drawing a mostly female crowd of 200 who showed up armed with cameras, questions -- and credit cards.

WEST CHESTER, Pa. - I can't write fast enough.See, up here on the observation deck above QVC's studios in West Chester, there are television monitors that show how many calls are coming in, how many products they've sold and how much money they've made. Today, in the past year, in the 12 years since QVC debuted.And since I'm here to write a story about tours of QVC Studio Park, I'd like to have some of these numbers for my story.But I can't write fast enough.The calls keep coming, the numbers keep changing, and QVC is selling merchandise faster than I can jot it all down.

PHILADELPHIA -- Comcast Corp.'s second-quarter loss widened because of its investment in a wireless telephone venture, as its main cable television and home shopping businesses reported gains.Comcast, the fourth-largest U.S. cable company, reported a loss of $84.8 million, or 25 cents a share, yesterday. That is more than five times its loss before a charge of $14.6 million, or 5 cents, in the year-ago period.Revenue rose 12 percent, to $1.32 billion from $1.18 billion.The company's overall operating cash flow -- or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- rose 8 percent to $408 million when adjusted for acquisitions and divestitures.

HOLLYWOOD -- Perhaps it is a sign of the times that a garishly large and expensive home along famed Sunset Boulevard is now being opened up for the world to see. There was a period, after the riots, when L.A.'s rich hid their riches, leaving the Rolex at home and driving the Ford Bronco instead of the Range Rover. But how things have changed.Case in point:Engelbert Humperdinck, venerable Las Vegas crooner and star of many a late-night greatest-hits commercial, is offering for sale his historic mansion on Sunset through QVC's new "First Friday: Extreme Shopping" show.

They'll each get seven minutes of fame, time on national cable television to hawk crab soup and lacrosse sticks, fruit butter and leather cleaner, "Frigipure" air purifiers and "fighting fist" fishing rod attachments.For the 20 entrepreneurs picked to represent Maryland on a QVC shopping network program this fall, it's a chance to catapult from relative obscurity into tens of millions of American households.QVC, which has highlighted individual states and local products as part of a tour of 50 states in 50 weeks since January, will feature Maryland products in a three-hour live broadcast in October.