Free Republic

The parent company behind well-known shopping channels QVC and HSN has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. QVC Group, which filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, announced the filing in a press release Thursday, saying the company will undergo a restructuring support agreement (RSA) to reduce its debt from $6.6 billion to $1.3 billion. The goal of the RSA is to emerge from bankruptcy within 90 days. "The company has ample liquidity to support the business and, importantly, the terms of the RSA provide for vendors, suppliers and all other general unsecured creditors of the...

Billionaire Barry Diller has come out as gay - but insists he enjoyed a full sexual relationship with fashion designer wife Diane Von Furstenberg. Diller, a renowned media exec who previously served as CEO for both Fox and Paramount, opened up about his homosexuality in a soul-baring article penned for New York magazine Tuesday. The 83-year-old credited with creating the Fox channel wrote of Von Furstenberg: 'While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman. 'And she didn’t come into my life until I was 33 years old.' Diller and Von...

Due to the growing list of brands disclosing that they have been compromised as a result of this breach, I’m going to go ahead and tag this as a massive breach. And I only expect it to get bigger as more announcements come out from Epsilon customers. Last night we reported on a breach at marketing services provider, Epsilon, the world’s largest permission-based email marketing provider. Initially we wrote that the breach had affected Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery retailer. There is a list of companies at the link (but I don't know if that is going to be...

I just saw this on HSN and couldn't believe it . . ..

Soon, buying that must-have purse or set of kitchen knives on television shopping channel HSN could mean reaching for your TV remote control instead of the telephone. St. Petersburg based HSN today plans to announce a project with cable TV giant Cablevision that lets viewers buy HSN products directly through their TVs using interactive screens on their television sets. HSN is the first major television shopping channel to launch such a system, informally called "shop by remote," though cable TV executives expect more shopping channels will follow as digital cable networks make interactive cable TV features more commonplace.