Joseph Myron Segel (January 9, 1931 – December 21, 2019) was an American entrepreneur. He was the founder of over 20 American companies, most notably
QVC
QVC (short for "Quality Value Convenience") is an American free-to-air television network, and flagship shopping channel specializing in televised home shopping, owned by Qurate Retail Group. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Chester, Pen ...
, an American television network, and the
Franklin Mint
The Franklin Mint is a private mint founded by Joseph Segel in 1964 in Wawa, Pennsylvania. The building is in Middletown Township.
The brand name was previously owned by Sequential Brands Group headquartered in New York City, New York. It is ...
, a producer of mail-order
collectible
A collectable (collectible or collector's item) is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector. Collectable items are not necessarily monetarily valuable or uncommon. There are numerous types of collectables and terms t ...
s. Segel was named to the
Direct Marketing Association's Hall of Fame in 1993. He was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Electronic Retailing Association and an honorary doctorate from
Drexel University
Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, S ...
.
He was awarded the
Philip H. Ward, Jr. Medal from
The Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memoria ...
in 1977. In 2005, the Harvard Business School published their selection of ''The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century''. Then, in 2007, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania published their selection of ''The Most Influential Wharton Alumni and Faculty in the Wharton School's 125-year history''. Segel was one of only 10 people who was on both of these lists.
Early life
Born to a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family, Segel, at the age of 13, started a successful printing business. At 16, he entered the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a Private university, private Ivy League rese ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. In 1951 he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics. As a graduate student, he taught introductory marketing classes while running the "
Advertising Specialty Institute
The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) is a for-profit organization serving the advertising specialty industry (which mainly creates and distributes promotional products).
Members of ASI include both manufacturers and suppliers of promotiona ...
", his first significant business. A first in the industry, it published a centralized directory of promotional materials and their suppliers, the Advertising Specialty Register.
In 1964, Segel took note of two concurrent events – the passing of General Douglas MacArthur and people lining up at banks to buy up the last U.S. silver dollars. In response, he founded the National Commemorative Society, which introduced a monthly series of limited edition, sterling silver commemorative coin-like medals honoring events and heroes in American history, starting with a medal commemorating General Douglas MacArthur. Later that year, dissatisfied with the quality of the coin-medals produced by a subcontractor, he recruited
Gilroy Roberts
Gilroy Roberts (March 11, 1905, Philadelphia – January 26, 1992 Havertown, Pennsylvania) was an American sculptor. He served as the ninth Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1948 until 1964, and is perhaps most famous for designing t ...
, then Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint, to join him in starting the General Numismatics Corporation. GNC became the
Franklin Mint
The Franklin Mint is a private mint founded by Joseph Segel in 1964 in Wawa, Pennsylvania. The building is in Middletown Township.
The brand name was previously owned by Sequential Brands Group headquartered in New York City, New York. It is ...
in 1965, shortly after going public. The Franklin Mint quickly expanded to produce not only coin-like medals and casino tokens, but other collectibles, including car models, luxury board-game editions, and porcelain dolls.
Segel retired as chairman of Franklin Mint Corporation in 1973.
National Software Testing Laboratories
Segel founded the
National Software Testing Laboratories
National Software Testing Laboratories (NSTL) was established by serial entrepreneur Joseph Segel in 1983 to test computer software. The company provides certification (such as WHQL and Microsoft Windows Mobile certification), quality assurance ...
aka NSTL in 1983.
[Harvard Business School, ''20th Century American Leaders Database']
Joseph M. Segel
The company published several monthly newsletters including "Software Digest". The publications were often subscribed by IT departments of major corporations, as a basis to evaluate and consider products for their company. PC Hardware and software publishers often contracted the company to perform compatibility and performance tests.
NSTL passed through a series of owners, including publisher McGraw-Hill,
before being acquired by
Intertek
Intertek Group plc is a British multinational assurance, inspection, product testing and certification company headquartered in London, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
History
I ...
in 2007.
Public service
In 1971, Segel was elected chairman of the Board of Governors of the United Nations Association of the USA. Two years later, President
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
appointed him as a member of the U.S. Delegation to that year's
United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
, where he served under
Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...
. He also organized a national campaign of the
Advertising Council
The Advertising Council, commonly known as the Ad Council, is an American nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements on behalf of various sponsors, including nonprofit organizations, non-governme ...
to improve public understanding of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, chaired a national conference on the United Nations for the American Society of Newspapers Editors and testified in support of the United Nations before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 1986 he wrote an article in
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
in defense of Secretary-General
Kurt Waldheim
Kurt Josef Waldheim (; 21 December 1918 – 14 June 2007) was an Austrian politician and diplomat. Waldheim was the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 to 1981 and president of Austria from 1986 to 1992. While he was running for th ...
's recently discovered service as a
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
intelligence officer during WWII.
QVC
In 1986, Segel decided to start
QVC
QVC (short for "Quality Value Convenience") is an American free-to-air television network, and flagship shopping channel specializing in televised home shopping, owned by Qurate Retail Group. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Chester, Pen ...
("Quality Value Convenience") after watching a videotape of the
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, Flor ...
. Immediately, he identified many potential improvements, from the items offered for sale to their presentation. To lend credibility to the new company, QVC made a two-year deal to sell
Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
products. He raised over $20 million in capital, including support from
Ralph Roberts, the founder and chairperson of
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
. Roberts was able to arrange deals in which cable companies received investment stakes in QVC in exchange for carrying the channel.
Fifty-eight cable systems in twenty states signed on for the 7:30pm to 12:00 midnight broadcast, giving it an audience of 7.6 million TV homes for its November 24 launch. Publicly offered at $10 on September 5, 1986, QVC stock closed its first trading day at $20 per share, even though its first broadcast was months away.
Segel demanded that the presenters sell by informing, not pressuring the viewers about the product. This meant that presenters would have to study each product, explain the many benefits of the product, and know the product's sales history in order to make the sell more informative and entertaining. He forbid the
hard sell
In advertising, a hard sell is an advertisement or campaign that uses a more direct, forceful, and overt sales message, as opposed to a soft sell.
The term is also used to describe aggressive sales techniques used by company representatives, pa ...
and, unlike the Home Shopping Network, established that customers could purchase at any time, with no last minute price cuts, and no high pressure tactics. From 1986 to 1989 the Plymouth-based
Cable Value Network
QVC (short for "Quality Value Convenience") is an American free-to-air television network, and flagship shopping channel specializing in televised home shopping, owned by Qurate Retail Group. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Chester, Penn ...
was the dominant player in the industry with HSN second and QVC a distant third. Through the backing of cable operators, QVC launched a hostile takeover of CVN and wound up buying it out, only to take CVN off the air and replace it with QVC programming. QVC emerged as HSN's only serious competitor, out of hundreds of copycats,
even though it was on the verge of collapse in the early 1990s until
Barry Diller
Barry Charles Diller (born February 2, 1942) is an American businessman. He is Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founded the Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting. Diller was inducted into the Television Hall of ...
came on board. Today QVC employs a total of over 10,000 people, and did around $8.6 billion in business in fiscal year 2013, making it the second highest-grossing American television network, surpassed in revenue only by CBS.
Joseph Segel retired from QVC in 1993 upon Diller's hire, but remained involved in the network until 2013 in an advisory role.
Death
Segel died on December 21, 2019 at the age of 88 in
Gladwyne, Pennsylvania
Gladwyne is a suburban community in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States along the historic Philadelphia Main Line. In 2018, Gladwyne was ranked the sixth richest ZIP code (using 2015 IRS data) in the country in a ...
from congestive heart failure.
Businesses started
# 1947 - Eastern Advertising Co., Inc. -- advertising specialties.
# 1949 - Desk-Sign Manufacturing Co., Inc. -- personalized desk signs.
# 1950 - Magicard Co., Inc. -- promotional mailing pieces.
# 1950 -
Advertising Specialty Institute
The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) is a for-profit organization serving the advertising specialty industry (which mainly creates and distributes promotional products).
Members of ASI include both manufacturers and suppliers of promotiona ...
—promotional products trade information center.
# 1953 - Colorcrafters, Inc. -- pioneer in full-color printing.
# 1954 - Selective Gift Institute, Inc. -- business gift selection service.
# 1960 - National Business Services, Inc. -- consolidation of last 3 businesses.
# 1961 - Gem Publishing Co., Inc. – books featuring humorous sayings.
# 1962 - Jordan-Edwards Co., Inc. -- pocket appointment and record books.
# 1964 - National Commemorative Society, Inc. -- producer of commemorative medals.
# 1964 - The Franklin Mint (initially called General Numismatics Corporation).
# 1965 - Britannia Commemorative Society, Inc. -- producer of commemorative medals.
# 1970 - Le Mirador, S.A. -- Swiss resort hotel, spa and conference center.
# 1975 - Presidential Airways, Inc. -- private jet and helicopter charter service.
# 1977 - RateSearch Corporation—computerized air freight rate analysis service.
# 1981 - PermaColor Corporation—systems to preserve color photos.
# 1983 - Software Digest, Inc. -- PC software rating reports.
# 1983 - National Software Testing Laboratories, Inc. -- PC software testing.
# 1986 - QVC Network, Inc. – televised home shopping.
# 1997 - International Skincare Research, Inc. – Le Mirador skincare products for QVC.
# 1997 - SmokeStoppers, Inc. – smoking cessation programs
# 2008 - GoBYO.com - online restaurant database focusing on BYOB-friendly restaurants.
References
External links
*Budd Margolis
Home Shopping History: HSN & QVCJoseph M. Segel (an autobiography)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Segel, Joseph
1931 births
2019 deaths
American computer businesspeople
American mass media owners
American retail chief executives
American technology chief executives
20th-century American Jews
American technology company founders
American television company founders
Businesspeople from Philadelphia
QVC people
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni
20th-century American businesspeople
21st-century American Jews