Whadup With Startup EmVee TV? Is It Out Of The Home Shopping Game?

Whadup with EmVeeTV? Is it kaput?

One of our astute readers said that she couldn’t find the “boutique” home shopping network on her channel lineup any more, and that its website was down.

We went to the site outselves, and it said, “We apologize but our ecommerce site is currently unavailable. For customer service questions, please call 877-752-8103.”

We called that number at least a half dozen times, and the line was always busy.

EmVee TV debuted in January with carriage on the nation’s two major DBS providers, DirecTV and Dish Network.

At the time the network, based in Clearwater, Fla., described itself thus:

EmVee TV is a “boutique” home shopping network focusing on the sale of quality products that are unique, available in limited quantity or offered exclusively by Emvee TV, via television and http://www.emveetv.com. On January 9th, 2010, EmVee TV began broadcasting to over 32 million homes on DirecTV and Dish Network and a 25 year old dream of founders, Mark Brown and Rebecca Moore came true. Mark and Rebecca have worked for and with the largest home shopping networks…

We used to cover DBS, and we have a call in to DirecTV to find up what if in fact EmVee TV is gone.

The network was profiled in the St. Petersburg Times in September. It was a glowing story about how well EmVee TV was doing, and had interviews with a backer who anted up $2 million for it. EmVee TV claimed that it was halfway to its goal of racking up $8 million in first-year sales.

We also believe that ShopNBC exile Charla Rines appeared on EmVee TV this year.

IndieShop Lands A Wall Street Journal Puff Piece, Written By Christie Brinkley (Not), Who Is Coming To QVC

Christie Brinkley isn't writing for The Journal, but she is coming to QVC

IndieShop, the new home shopping network that will feature independent designers, got a big plug in The Wall Street Journal Thursday. Kudos to Trylon Communications, IndieShop’s PR firm.

The network, which will be cobbled together with paid programming purchased on cable networks across the country, was featured in the lead story of The Journal’s “Style” section, in a feature headlined “Crafts, Clothes and Clout.”

We misread the byline when we first read it, and thought times were so tough for model/divorcee Christie Brinkley that she was now freelancing for The Journal. But the writer was actually Christina Binkley. We need our contact lens cleaned.

Brinkley, however, does have a home shopping connection: She is bringing her jewelry line, already sold on Ross-Simons, to QVC.

Anyway, The Journal credits Melissa Perrucci, 42, a former Time Warner executive, with being the founder of IndieShop.

Former ShopNBC host Charla Rines said on Facebook that she’s about to land a job on a start-up network that sells luxury items. If it’s not EmVee TV, as we believe it is, maybe it’s IndieShop.