Former HSN Vendor Suzanne Somers To Appear On Current HSN Vendor Fran Drescher’s ‘Tawk’ Show Today

Actress-author-entrepreneur-ex-HSN vendor Suzanne Somers will be a guest on actress-HSN vendor Fran Drescher’s new daytime talk show today, Friday.

Maybe — not — Somers will dish about why she left HSN after more than a dozen years to join ShopNBC last year. The blonde was part of a wave of vendors who left, or were shown the door, when new HSN CEO Mindy Grossman came on board and started putting her stamp on the home shopping network.

Drescher’s program, which debuted on six Fox stations this week, is called “The Fran Drescher Tawk Show.” It airs on WNYW in New York City.

Drescher “joined the HSN family,” as the network likes to put it, this year with a skincare line, FranBrand. Somers is selling clothing, jewelry and skincare product on ShopNBC.

Lets's see, will Suzanne tell Fran why she left HSN?

Here is a description of today episode from the show’s website:

Fran Drescher’s not only naturally funny, but also a big believer in living a lifestyle that keeps you naturally sexy.

Today’s guests are all about staying lean, healthy and sensuous.

The iconic Suzanne Somers reveals how hormones and a positive attitude have kept her happy and youthful.

Then Fran has a rare in-depth interview with both Suzanne and husband/business partner Alan Hamel, who discuss their four-decade relationship and the challenges of keeping their business lives separate from their romantic lives.

Plus, Suzanne & Alan show Fran how to cook their favorite mushroom soup and the joy of growing their own vegetables.

Will Suzanne Somers’ ShopNBC Styler Get Our Curls Under Control?

Maybe she used the Suzanne Styler for this straight do

Best-selling author/actress/ShopNBC vendor Suzanne Somers is moving into the hair-apparatus arena.

Somers is hawking a “Suzanne Styler” that is similar to a gizmo with a rotating barrel that QVC was trying to shove down our throats for several months.

Somers was promoting her styler via her e-mail newsletter this week, timed to her appearance on ShopNBC.

The Suzanne Styler, which is already available on ShopNBC.com, promises to “straighten, lift, volumize and curl with one extraordinary styling tool.” It is selling for $94.

Here’s what we are promised:

The styler straightens with its rotating barrel, which polishes hair and gives it frizz-free shine.

It adds lift and volume at the hair’s roots.

It can create soft curls or tight spiral curls.

It has a titanium plate that evenly distributes heat.

This is all illustrated with photos of Somers with straight hair and sexy loose curls.

We admit, we are a little intrigued.

Here is the full dope from ShopNBC.com.

The Suzanne Styler adds body and volume as it straightens

This is done in two ways:

-First, the Suzanne Styler straightens with a polishing titanium barrel–it fluffs the hair, creating extra volume
-Secondly, the rotating barrel actually lifts hair from the scalp and creates volume at the root

Even those with short or thin hair can achieve amazing volume with the Suzanne Styler

The barrel is titanium — Titanium is known for its strength and high temperature stability. It is corrosion resistant, conducts heat more evenly and heats up faster than ceramic

Titanium has an ultra-polished surface allowing the hair to glide smoothly through the Suzanne Styler for silky soft, smooth and shiny hair

The advantage of the Suzanne Styler is it doesn’t crush hair between two static plates like a flat iron or curling iron does
The barrel on the Suzanne Styler is rotating and polishing as opposed to two static plates on most hair tools which burn and crease the hair

It has a Floating Styling Plate — the floating plate on the Suzanne Styler allows it to adjust for the varying amounts of hair you want to style

Each time you use the Suzanne Styler, whether you are doing wide, thick sections or thin sections, the floating plate will automatically adjust to make certain there is constant consistent pressure against the rotating cylinder
This ensures that your hair gets the absolute most benefit from the smoothing and straightening effect of the Suzanne Styler

It has Aligned Pin Bristles — The first set of bristles aligns the hair before it passes over the heated plate allowing even styling

The second set of bristles keeps hair in line after it passes over the rotating barrel and heated plate leaving hair smooth, silky and shiny

Promises, promises.

Beyonce’s Mom Miss Tina, A Former HSN Vendor, Has Landed At Kmart

Sorry we’re a month late on this folks, but former HSN vendor Tina Knowles has landed at Kmart.

Knowles, the stylish mother of pop superstar Beyonce, is doing a clothing line for Kmart called Miss Tina for Kmart. The blog Posh On a Budget reported the news in October, when the line debuted.

Miss Tina is now at Kmart

Knowles, co-founder of the House of Dereon, had a line on HSN, Miss Tina by Tina Knowles, that included apparel and accessories. But earlier this year it suddenly disappeared, along with another African-American HSN vendor, Terry Lewis.

HSN CEO Mindy Grossman’s strategy has been to bring name-brand clothing and designers to the home shopping network, and that lead to an exodus of HSN vendors, including Suzanne Somers.

Looking on Knowles, you can see where Beyonce gets her style and class from.

The Miss Tina Kmart line has a lot of soft, drapey knit blouses, which we love, at prices that are just silly, like $15. Everything is under $20 in the collection of 30 pieces. We just may have to venture into our local Kmart to check them out.

Will HSN’s Vitamin Maven Andrew Lessman Skewer ShopNBC’s New Nutrition Expert, The Wizard Of Oz, In His Blog?

ShopNBC is getting its own vitamin guru, its answer to HSN’s Andrew Lessman.

Nationally recognized nutritionist Dr. Oz Garcia will introduce his new proprietary line, Vivantage Supplements, to ShopNBC in a sneak peek this Monday, the network said Friday.

Now the question is will Lessman take pot shots at Garcia in his blog the way he did at QVC’s supplements, criticism that prompted QVC to sue Lessman.

Nutritionist to the stars Oz Garcia

And where does this leave HSN refugee Suzanne Somers and her nuitritional supplement line, which ShopNBC also sells?

Garcia is a best-selling author and who was twice voted “Best Nutritionist” by New York Magazine, ShopNBC said in its press release. The network will be have a preview offer ready before the line’s full launch in later in September.

The line will premiere on ShopNBC Monday and Tuesday.

Garcia is going to give us the dope about how Vivantage can help deliver the nutrients that many of us do not get from diet alone. With more than 25 years of experience in the health and wellness industry, Garcia will explain how the products in Vivantage help provide a complete and balanced vitamin and supplement program.

“The elements in Vivantage include the highest quality supplements available in today’s marketplace and are designed with targeted, research-based formulas that work together for a healthier lifestyle,” the ShopNBC PR machine said.

Those are the kinds of claims that might get Lessman riled up. QVC tried, and failed, to get an injunction to stop Lessman from blasting its supplements in his blog.

ShopNBC is offering four different options of the 30-Day Trial Size of the Multi-Vitamin sneak peek will be offered to customers: a multivitamin pack for men and women aged under 50 and over 50.

Is HSN Bouncing Beyonce’s Mom, Miss Tina, From The Home Shopping Network?

Tina Knowles, Beyonce's mom

It looks like HSN is discontinuing yet another clothing line, and this time the exit door is being given to Tina Knowles, mother of pop superstar Beyonce Knowles.

Mama Knowles, who used to design costumes for Destiny’s Child before Beyonce split off from that group, has been doing a clothing and accessory line for HSN called Miss Tina By Tina Knowles.

The collection included not only clothing but also jewelry, shoes and handbags.

But currently all of Miss Tina’a merchandise on HSN.com, the little of it there is left, is on clearance. The line included some clunkers, like a skirt attached to leggings. But it also had more classic pieces, especially the purses.

We asked HSN for a comment Thursday, and the network said it was getting something together for us. We still don’t have anything from them.

HSN, under new CEO Mindy Grossman, has replaced many of the channel’s veteran vendors, such as Suzanne Somers, with hipper, more upscale and notable designers, such as Badgley Mischka.

Miss Tina would be the second African-American designer to lose her line on HSN. This year Terry Lewis, a former HSN host who did a collection called Classic Luxury for her former employer, also lost her spot on the network’s roster.

Of course, HSN has ended its relationship with many Caucasian vendors, as well, but the exit of Miss Tina might not sit well with some viewers, especially black customers of the No. 2 home shopping network. We heard from fans of Lewis who were not happy about her departure.

That would self-defeating for HSN, which of all the three major electronic retailers seems to have made a real effort to use African-American vendors and court African-American customers. HSN’s black vendors include Iman, Serena Williams, Carol’s Daughter, Sean ‘Puff Daddy” Combs, Antthony Design Originals and Natalie Cole.

And Saturday singer Mary J. Blige will do the exclusive premiere of her perfume, My Life, on HSN.

Will NBCU’s Plans To Keep Its ShopNBC Stake Derail Any Sale Of The Home Shopping Network?

What's Keith Stewart got cooking at ShopNBC?

ShopNBC was put up for sale in 2008, and then was taken off the block a few months later. Well, we heard it’s for sale again.

ShopNBC declined to comment, by the way.

There’s been a lot of talk about possible home-shopping-network sales this week, so we’ll add this to the mix.

The ShopNBC-sale scenario we had heard about would potentially have been made easier because of NBC Universal’s plans, announced in May, to sell its 20 percent stake in the home shopping network. But on Thursday NBCU threw a monkey wrench into that possibility. Citing ShopNBC’s low stock price, NBCU announced that it wasn’t going to unload its share in the network.

Wall Street Journal blogger James Altucher was bullish on ValueVision Media, ShopNBC’s corporate parent, in a blog earlier this week. The home shopping network has 75 million subscribers, and Altucher values it at $270 million to $300 million in his blog.

He bases that price on payment of $3.92 per subscriber, which he says is “the cheapest price paid for any network on a subscriber by subscriber basis” in the past.

Altchuler, who says that Barry Diller unsucessfully bid on ShopNBC twice, has the inside dope on the initial attempt to sell ShopNBC. ValueVision shopped the network to more than 100 companies. It wound up with four serious suitors, two of them strategic buyers and two financial sponsors, according to Altuchuler. But a deal was never struck

“I think the clearing of the NBC Universal stake finally bring buyers into the loop here,” Altchuler wrote.

Well, that’s off the table now.

There’s been a lot of buzz on Wall Street about home shopping networks this week, following news that Liberyr Media Corp. was spinning off two companies to leave Liberty Interactive, which QVC is part of, as essentially a standalone company. That fueled speculation that this move by cable legend-cowboy-God John Malone was a prelude to merging QVC and HSN.

We’ll see about that one.

ShopNBC chief Keith Stewart has said that with NBCU selling its take in the home shopping network, ShopNBC will rebrand itself next year. The network has been working for months on coming up with a new name, according to Stewart.

Would you go through that trouble if you were selling your network? Or is it an attempt to dress up the property to attract suitors?

We haven't seen too much of Suzanne Somers on ShopNBC

Meanwhile, people familiar with the situation say that ShopNBC’s infrastructure, like its call centers, are not big enough to support the network.

As one sign of the times, ShopNBC is ordering a just a fraction of the amount of merchandise a month from vendor Suzanne Somers that HSN used to order, according to sources. In fact, although Somers initially said she would be on ShopNBC once a month, her visits have been much less frequent.

And we’re told some apparel vendors have to carry orders, meaning if their merchandise doesn’t sell ShopNBC can return it to them.

We wonder if they can only return it within 30 days?

Is Terry Lewis The Latest Vendor Banished By HSN CEO Mindy Grossman?

Classic Terry Lewis leather pants

Is Terry Lewis, the former HSN host who became a vendor on the home shopping network, gone?

It’s no secret that HSN CEO Mindy Grossman has been purging (remember Suzanne Somers?) the No. 2 home shopping channel of many long-time vendors, as she brings in well-known designers such as Badgley Mischka.

Lewis, who many years ago worked as a host on HSN, for several years now has sold a line, Classic Luxuries, on the channel. The collection was apparel and accessories that had a timeless look. One of her specialties was leather coats, pants and skirts. We have several of those pieces, including a pair of glove-soft black leather pants (no wiseacre comments, please).

But Lewis has not been on very much recently, and a peek at HSN.com will show that HSN has only a few of items in its inventory, with nearly all of them on clearance.

We e-mailed HSN’s PR department last night to find out what is happening with Lewis, and still haven’t received a response.

HSN has a number of African-American vendors, more so than any other of the major home shopping channels, and Lewis was one of the first of them.

First ThighMasters, Now Wine: ShopNBC’s Suzanne Somers Mulls Getting Into the Vino Business

ShopNBC vendor and actress Suzanne Somers is contemplating getting into the wine business.

Somers, who left HSN after more than a dozen years and went to ShopNBC last fall, sent an e-mail out Friday to those who subscribe to her electronic newsletter.

Somers, a controversial best-selling author, asked for customer feedback about her starting to sell wine from a small vineyard she discovered in Napa Valley.

“As you know, I am constantly reviewing products. I insist on high-quality items and today I am writing to you with my first request for honest feedback,” Somers wrote.

“Recently I discovered a small winery in Napa Valley, Calif., that produces over 20 wine varieties,” she said. “They are a family-owned winery, run by 6th generation winemakers. They have a very small output of quality wines that are not nationally distributed. I was impressed with this wine, and love the fact that their grapes are grown without the use of pesticides. I would like to see if these products would be of interest to you. They would be available only at suzannesomers.com and priced in the $20-$30 range.”

The blonde is or has sold clothing, health supplements, diet foods, exercise equipment, makeup, skin care products, shoes and jewelry, so maybe wine isn’t such a stretch.

The Dumping of Louis Dell’Olio And Charla Rines Sparks Customer Outrage At QVC And ShopNBC: How Shifts In Strategy Can Alienate Shoppers

Charla Rines

We’ve chronicled two instances now where customers of QVC and ShopNBC have become livid, and threatened to boycott those networks, because the two channels were getting rid of two popular personalities.

In the most recent brouhaha, more “mature” QVC shoppers were ready to tar and feather QVC president Mike George and John Malone and Gref Maffei, who run QVC’s parent Liberty Media, when they got word that the home shopping channel was dropping designer Louis Dell’Olio’s line.

Linea Ladies (named after his QVC Linea collection) this week mounted a focused campaign to keep Dell’Olio on the air, setting up a Twitter account, bombarding the offices of George and Malone with phone calls, and writing to these executives.

Who knows what will happen ultimately. Campaigns like this, no matter how passionate the protesters, seldom work.

But the “Ladies” seem to have made some progress last week on behalf of Dell’Olio. The award-winning designer wrote on his blog Friday that QVC officials now want to meet with him to discuss the future of his line for them. Prior to that, Dell’Olio said that QVC had informed him that it would stop placing orders for his line in the fall.

Customer relations are not much better at ShopNBC, where angry viewers are still shocked that the No. 3 shopping network canned spike-haired Rines, a loud-mouthed but popular host, back in January. Our blogs about Rines have received the most traffic of any items on this site, and more than 80 people have posted comments damning ShopNBC for letting Rines go.

These ShopNBC customers are also posting that the network had gone down the toilet in terms of the quality of its merchandise, especially the high-end jewelry that Rines used to do presentations on.

What’s going on here? You are seeing customer reaction to major changes in strategy at both QVC and ShopNBC.

Mindy Grossman

HSN is making similar changes, but even when veteran vendor Suzanne Somers left last fall after more than a decade at the network, there was no viewer ire. We guess that’s because she had her new home-shopping gig set up — moving over to ShopNBC.

With the recession, it’s a tough environment out there for home shopping networks. Gems TV went black last Thursday, and has filed for Chaper 11 bankruptcy protection. QVC, HSN and ShopNBC obviously don’t want to suffer a similar fate.

All three home shopping networks have shifted their strategies. For one, they have changed their product mixes to include less jewelry (which apparently no one but us is buying nowadays) and much more beauty and consumer electronics producs.

QVC and HSN are going in similar directions in many respects: In particular, they are replacing their older clothing lines with hipper fashions by younger designers. So for example, you have HSN CEO Mindy Grossman bringing in higher-end design talent like Badgley Mischka, Naeem Khan and Stephani Greenfield to the network.

In the case of QVC and Dell’Olio, he makes gorgeous classic tailored clothes, the kind of garments that women my age love. But QVC is trying to attract new, younger viewers, and has brought in more fashion-forward designers such as Isaac Mizrahi and Chloe Dao with their edgier fashions.

Linea Ladies pointed out to QVC that they have lots more disposal income than the kids, and that younger shoppers are fickle and unloyal. Good points.

If you read QVC’s online forums, you will soon learn that the Linea Ladies don’t like the new designers like Mizrahi, and that they feel they are being swept aside in the home shopping channel’s push to draw new shoppers. And these women are probably right.

Keith Stewart

That age issue is also at the center of customer anger over ShopNBC letting Rines go: She was not a 20-something, she was maybe a 50-something. The new generic, picture perfect hosts that ShopNBC has hired just don’t cut the mustard, according to Rines’s fans.

With her bright red lipstick and short platinum blonde hair, Rines didn’t look or act like any other host on a home shopping channel. She was outspoken, blunt, sarcastic and had a real edge to her. She drove us nuts sometimes, but at least she didn’t have the nauseatingly sweet, unskeptical persona of many home-shopping network hosts.

ShopNBC’s situation, except for it getting rid of an older talent, is opposite of QVC’s and HSN’s. Chief Keith Stewart is trying to make the No. 3 home shopping channel less upscale, lowering the average price of its merchandise. You won’t see many $20,000 rings being sold on ShopNBC now, the way you used to.

And he is widening ShopNBC’s product mix to be more like QVC and HSN, in that the No. 3 home shopping network is now selling gourmet food and even 3D HDTV sets (before its two rivals did).

All three home shopping channels will soon be reporting their first-quarter earnings. They have been seeing rising sales, so maybe their new strategies are working.

But their core customers are not happy. And those are the shoppers that they depend on to come back again and again.

Happy Anniversary: We Got Laid Off Exactly One Year Ago, Jan. 26, And Have Lived To Talk About The Joys Of Being Pink-Slipped

This is the only blog I’ll ever write in the first person here. I debated all day whether to write it, but I must.

Last January was the biggest month for layoffs last year, I’ve read. And I, and several close colleagues, were among those who were pink-slipped. The three boxes, with 16 years of memories, that I packed up that week are still sitting near the door inside my condo. Reed Business Information, my ex-employer, paid for the shipping.

Being laid off has its rewards, like getting free margaritas and meeting Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora

I guess there are a lot of people who are a lot more resilient than I am, but I took it hard. It’s tough when you’ve been getting in work by 7:15 a.m., and leaving at 6 p.m. or later, working on weekends, working on vacations, to screech down to zero miles an hour.

For several months, I could not eat. For several months, I could not sleep. For several months, I literally could not smile. For several months, I could not laugh. For several months, I could not listen to music. For several months, I did not have one minute of happiness. No exaggeration.

I saw “Up In The Air” recently — which features folk who were laid off in real life in the movie as actors — expressing their anger at being fired. I almost wish I had thrown everything off the table like some of those people, instead of acting “professional.” But what goes around comes around. The HR guy who gave me my bad news was himself laid off recently.

You know those cliches you hear about, about finding out who your real friends are? Those cliches are true. You don’t hear a peep from your good “friends” at work. The PR people who loved you at upfront parties don’t return your phone calls. The cable network presidents who always seemed to enjoy chatting with you when you were employed are curt during phone calls. Some idiot asked one of my laid-off compadres how they where enjoying their “vacation.”

People — and I’ve interviewed them in my new incarnation — have survived real challenges and tragedies, like cancer or losing a loved one. What about the people in Haiti? So boo-hoo for me being upset about not having a job. Big deal. Don’t whine. But like I said, it hit me hard. At one point, I even feared I could never write a story again.

New Jersey became the new Hollywood for reality TV, and I wrote about the trend and the shows, like Jersey Shore

But my family and true friends pulled me through, and this is my thank-you note to them. You guys know who you are, in Parsippany, Whippany, Staten Island, Wyckoff and Westfield, and Vermont.

And the tide turned for me.

When I filed my first major story after my layoff, for a startup Web site, the editor said it was the cleanest story he ever read.

A very kind PR executive at a local hospital chain gave me a break, and let me do volunteer work for her department. Several of my press releases got placement, in papers including The Star-Ledger. I had the honor of interviewing people who wept as they told me how the hospital had saved their lives. I loved writing their stories.

Bon Jovi released a new album, and Showtime aired a documentary on them. I got to go a screening, where they served margaritas (my favorite), and I later interviewed the band. It became another story that generated a lot of Web traffic.

All of a sudden New Jersey, of all places, became a mecca for reality TV shows like “Jersey Shore.” And I was able to write stories about the shows, and about the trend. They were among the Web site’s Top-10 viewed stories.

Who wouldn't want to write about Kurt Sutter, creator and showrunner of FX's Sons of Anarchy?

I got back on the cable-network PR radar, and was able to interview and write about Kurt Sutter, creator of one of my favorite shows, FX “Sons of Anarchy.” Hey, he’s from Jersey.

I realized I still had my reporting chops when a got nice exclusive for TVNewscheck. It felt great.

Cablevision, with 900,000 customers in New Jersey, and Food Network got in a fight. Another story for me.

I posted a note on my bulletin board shortly after I was pink-slipped. It’s a quote from Western author Louis L’Amour: “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.”

It turned out to be true. Without my layoff, I would never have been able to tell the tales of those who were saved by the hospital, and I would not have met the great women in the PR department there.

I would not have sat down and eaten in a soup kitchen, as I did as part of my research for a series on the Salvation Army. The people eating there, some homeless, were so kind. Seeing me as a newcomer, and not knowing I was a reporter, one came over and welcomed me.

I launched my home shopping blog when Suzanne Somers moved from HSN to ShopNBC

I wouldn’t have had the nerve to start a blog, on home shopping, timed to coincide with Suzanne Somers’ move to ShopNBC from HSN, a seismic shift in that little world. In only five months, people in the home-shopping industry tell me Homeshoppingista is now a must-read for them.

I have had to think long and hard about what I want to do.

On “Southland” — right now airing on my TV, and on TNT — one character says, “You’re a cop because you don’t know how not to be one.”

I’m a writer because I don’t know how not to be one.