HSN, Inc. an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

television network A television broadcaster or television network is a telecommunications network for the distribution of television show, television content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations, pay television providers or ...

owned by the QVC Group (formerly

Qurate Retail Group QVC Group (formerly Qurate Retail, Inc., also known as Qurate Retail Group), is an American media conglomerate controlled by company chairman John C. Malone, who owns a majority of the voting shares. History 1998 launch by Liberty Media Orig ...

), which also owns catalog company Cornerstone Brands. It is based in

West Chester, Pennsylvania West Chester is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough and the county seat of Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located in the Delaware Valley, Philadelphia metropolitan area, the borough had a population of 18,671 at the 2020 census. West ...

. As of July 2014,

Joy Mangano Joy Mangano ( ; born February 1, 1956) is an American inventor and entrepreneur known for inventions such as the self-wringing Miracle Mop. She was the president of Ingenious Designs, LLC, and appeared regularly on the U.S. television shopping ...

holds the record for most units sold in a day with 216,000 units of pillow sets.

History

The forerunner of HSN was launched by Lowell Paxson (who later established

PAX-TV Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American terrestrial television, broadcast television network and Free ad-supported streaming television, FAST television channel owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scri ...

, which is now Ion Television) and

Roy Speer Roy Merrill Speer Jr. (June 23, 1932 – August 21, 2012) was an American attorney, and entrepreneur. He was also the former CEO, co-founder and chairman of the Home Shopping Network. Early life and education Speer was born in Key West, Florida a ...

in 1982 as the Home Shopping Club, a local cable channel seen on Vision Cable and

Group W Cable The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndic ...

Pinellas County, Florida Pinellas County (, ) is located on the west central coast of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 959,107, making it the seventh-most populous county in the state. It is also the most d ...

. 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 As a selling technique, a sales presentation or sales pitch is a line of talk that attempts to persuade someone or something, with a planned sales presentation strategy of a product or service designed to initiate and close a sale of the produc ...

for consumer goods and services. Its competitor and future owner

QVC QVC (short for "Quality Value Convenience") is an American free-to-air television network and a flagship shopping channel specializing in televised Shopping channel, home shopping, owned by QVC Group (formerly Qurate Retail Group). Founded in 19 ...

was launched the following year. In 1986, HSN began a second network that broadcast free-to-air on a number of

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...

s it had acquired under the name Silver King Broadcasting. In 1992, HSN spun off from Silver King Broadcasting, and afterwards saw Liberty Media acquire stock in the network. In 1996, the station group was sold back to Silver King Broadcasting, which was now owned by

Barry Diller Barry Charles Diller (born February 2, 1942) is an American billionaire businessman. He is chairman and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founded the Fox Broadcasting Company with Rupert Murdoch and USA Broadcasting. Diller was ind ...

, and changed its name to "HSN Inc." after its merger with Silver King was completed. Under Diller's leadership, the HSN also acquired the

USA Network USA Network (or simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports ...

, Sci-Fi Channel and

Universal Television Universal Television LLC (abbreviated as UTV) is an American television production company that is a division of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#Universal Studio Group, Universal Studio Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which, in turn, is ...

in October 1997. This resulted in HSN Inc. being changed to USA Network Inc. The purchase was finalized in February 1998. In September 2000, Home Shopping Network changed its name to HSN.

Mindy Grossman Mindy Grossman (born September 8, 1957) is the former CEO of WW International (formerly Weight Watchers). Her earlier career included executive roles at Ralph Lauren Corporation and Nike, and she was also CEO of HSN from 2006 - 2017. She has ...

became CEO of HSN in 2006, and aggressively reinvented and relaunched the brand. She took HSN public in 2008, and has overseen its multibillion-dollar retail portfolio and multimedia expansion.Grossman, Mindy
"HSN's CEO on Fixing the Shopping Network's Culture"
''

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a not-for-profit, independent corporation that is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. ''HBR'' is published six times a year ...

''. December 2011. Reprinted in:

''How I Did It: Lessons from the Front Lines of Business''
Harvard Business Review Press, 2014. pp. 54–61. Grossman left HSNi in May 2017 to helm Weight Watchers. In April 2017, HSN CEO Mindy Grossman stepped down to assume the CEO position at Weight Watchers. On July 6, 2017, Liberty Interactive announced it would buy the remaining 62% of HSN stock it did not already own in order to acquire the company for its QVC Group. QVC CEO Mike George would be CEO of the combined company. In September 2018, HSN had partnered with ''

Pickler & Ben ''Pickler & Ben'' is an American syndicated daytime talk show hosted by country singer Kellie Pickler and media personality Ben Aaron, focusing on lifestyle, beauty, celebrity and advertorial segments, along with the subjects of human interest ...

'' for a "shop the show" feature that allows viewers to buy featured items from HSN via the show's website and HSN.com. In May 2023, HSN's parent Qurate Retail Group's stock was facing a delisting from the Nasdaq if share prices are unable to rebound, as their stock has declined over 80% over the past year. In October 2023, CreditRiskMonitor reported that Qurate Retail Group was nearing a potential

Chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

filing. On February 21, 2025, HSN's parent Qurate Retail Group officially changed its name to QVC Group.

Sister channels

*HSN2, launched on August 1, 2010, acts as a

timeshift channel A timeshift channel or time-shift channel (sometimes referred to as a +1 channel) is a television channel carrying time-delayed reruns of its "parent" channel's programming. This channel runs alongside its parent: the term ''timeshift'' does not ...

carrying tape-delayed presentations of products and programming.

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

has carried it since launch. *

America's Store America's Store was a US shopping television network. It was the spin-off channel to the Home Shopping Network (HSN). America's Store (AS) began in 1988 as the Home Shopping Club Overnight Service, which aired on broadcast stations around th ...

, formerly the Home Shopping Club Overnight Service, was HSN's secondary service that was on the air from 1988 until April 2007.

Operations

HSN's United States operations are based in

St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the List of municipalities in Florida, fifth-most populous city in Florida and the most populous city in the sta ...

, which houses its corporate headquarters, studio and broadcasting facilities. Additional

call center A call centre (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American English, American spelling; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences) is a managed capability th ...

facilities are located in

Roanoke, Virginia Roanoke ( ) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It lies in Southwest Virginia, along the Roanoke River, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Blue Ridge range of the greater Appalachian Mountains. Roanok ...

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the western end of Lake Erie along the Maumee River. Toledo is the List of cities in Ohio, fourth-most populous city in Ohio and List of United Sta ...

. Distribution centers are situated in Roanoke, Piney Flats, Tennessee, and

Fontana, California Fontana is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Founded by Azariel Blanchard Miller in 1913, it remained essentially rural until World War II, when entrepreneur Henry J. Kaiser built a large steel mill in the area. It ...

. In October, 2018 Quarate announced the closure of the Roanoke distribution center in favor of a combined QVC/HSN distribution center to be located in Bethlehem, PA. In January 2025, it was announced that HSN would be closing its St. Petersburg headquarters and relocating to

, home of HSN and

parent company

. As of today, HSN and QVC is carried over the digital public airwaves and can be viewed without a cable subscription or a streaming device. Additionally a new Streaming service was introduced to cable providers which provides a different shopping experience compared to if a viewer went online and ordered merchandise.

Technology

Call center

HSN National began with a standard rotary phone system that concentrated calls to the front of the queue. This corresponded to the front row of order takers in the HSN Studio at the Levitz Center (so named as the location was a former Levitz furniture store) in

Clearwater, Florida Clearwater is a city and the county seat of Pinellas County, Florida, United States, west of Tampa, Florida, Tampa and north of St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg. To the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and to the southeast lies T ...

. After several months, this system was no longer adequate and HSN entered a phase where a phone system from

GTE GTE Corporation, formerly General Telephone & Electronics Corporation (1955–1982), was the largest independent telephone company in the United States during the days of the Bell System. The company operated from 1926, with roots tracing furth ...

was used. HSN claimed that the system's inability to handle the high call volumes resulted in a loss of business. HSN sued GTE for $1.5 billion. In a counter-libel suit, GTE claimed that HSN had slandered the company; GTE won a $100 million judgment. Both parties settled out of court.

Original order-taking system

HSN developed its original order-taking system on a Burroughs Large System mainframe using the

LINC The LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is a 12-bit, 2048-word transistorized computer. The LINC is considered by some to be the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer. Originally named the Linc, suggesting the project' ...

10 fourth generation language.

References

External links

* {{Commons category, HSN Television channels and stations established in 1982 Retail companies established in 1982 Retail companies of the United States Companies based in St. Petersburg, Florida Television stations in the Tampa Bay area Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Shopping networks in the United States 1982 establishments in Florida Television networks in the United States