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The biggest imperative for new home-shopping programs is to reach as many TV screens as possible. C.O.M.B., a Minneapolis discount merchandiser, has banded together with several dominant cable-TV companies (one of them, American Television and Communications, is 80% owned by Time Inc.) to assemble an audience of 15 million households for its Cable Value Network. Last month a powerful trio of companies formed a joint venture to put a program called ValueTelevision directly on broadcast airwaves. The participants: a chain of independent stations (Fox Television), a Hollywood production company (Lorimar-Telepictures) and a direct-mail giant (Horn & Hardart, owner of Hanover House). To meet the new challenges, HSN is in the process of branching out from cable to broadcasting by acquiring 14 UHF television stations.
Wall Street investors have greeted the home-shopping concept as if it were the next big bonanza, like personal computers or genetic engineering. "It's TV as another shopping mall," says Stuart Robbins, who follows the retailing industry for Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, the investment firm. When HSN went public last May, its shares skyrocketed from 18 to 42 on the first day, and are now about 118 (after adjustment for a 3-for-l stock split).
While some experts think the novelty will wear off, many customers keep buying again and again. This year Joan Ripple of Las Vegas has purchased more than 200 Home Shopping items, ranging from a mink Teddy bear to a two-inch color TV. Another steady customer, Gloria Jones of Cordova, Tenn., confesses, "I pretty well watch it all the time." Among her TV purchases: a high-tech telephone programmed for speed dialing the Home Shopping Club when the next bargain appears. --By Stephen Koepp. Reported by Elaine Dutka/Los Angeles and Lianne Hart/Houston