BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

THIRTYSOMETHING 

When I landed my first television job as a producer for then start-up, Fox Television, I had just turned thirty. My friends Cindy Crawford and her BFF make-up artist Sonia Kashuk had a great party for me at a Russian Nightclub in Brooklyn and I sang Proud Mary with a bad accent with two women named Olga and Svetlana.  I had just met my future wife, Susan, who was on an extended visit from her home in Tokyo where she was working as an actress. 

At Fox, I learned how debate and relentless curiosity mixed with a major dose of moxie could, if you let it - forge a career path. When the person that hires you happens to be Barry Diller – the man who created a 4th television network when no one thought it possible, Fox Television, you learn pretty quickly that a “career path” was what they taught courses about in college. Lucky for me I never went and Diller barely made it a year at UCLA.  

Because of the hierarchy at Fox, where Rupert Murdoch was the relatively new owner and ultimate ruler, I had several layers of “bosses” above me – mostly hardened Aussie newsroom guys who hated Diller and called him “Basil” behind his back. And probably something much worse behind my back when they were throwing back bottomless journalistic booze with the great Steve Dunleavy on a daily basis after the WNYW Fox New York 7pm newscast was over and “A Current Affair” had just put to bed their daily tawdry stories set to run the following day. When Diller came to town, he would by-pass all of them and come right into the edit room where I was cutting a story to see what was up. 

 I had finally cracked the Murdoch Aussie newsroom mafia one night at 2am while successfully rousting Dunleavy out from under his desk to continue writing the opening for the Fox special we were working on called, “Princess Diana, a Prisoner in the Palace”.  He wreaked of booze and cigarettes, one of which he promptly lit up and continued writing as if he had just arrived, freshly shaved and showered for another work day. We got a 8.4 rating on a Saturday night.

DOLLARS PER MINUTE

It was barely two years when my Fox television career came to a grinding and abrupt halt. One late Thursday evening, “Mr. Diller”, as he was always announced when his office called you, asked me to meet him and his not-yet-wife Diane von Furstenberg at a heliport on the east side of Manhattan on very early Saturday morning.  I didn’t ask any questions, I just showed up. As we flew over the 59th street bridge and headed west, he finally asked me if I had ever heard of QVC. “Yes.” I replied. DVF stared me straight in the eyes and smiled her infamous and mischievous smile while her hand rested on my knee. 

“Good, that’s where we are going this morning.” Said the soon-to-be CEO of QVC. 

Two months later, right before the year-end holidays, Diller announced he was leaving Fox and joining QVC as its CEO. I clearly remember calling him a "piece of shit" for ruining my budding TV producer career. He laughed out loud and then hung up.

The following January 1st - New Years Day, I received a message on my answering machine (look them up – it’s what we used to have). In his unmistakable deep baritone voice was a message, “Happy New Year. Help.” I played it for my wife who confirmed it sure sounded like Mr. Diller. I still have it. 

I was the first out-sider Diller hired to join QVC. My wife and I moved into townhouse in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and adopted a rescued racing Greyhound, named Skye. West Chester was "in the country". It wasn’t Long Island country, or South Jersey Shore country, but next to one of the largest Amish populations of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and right up the interstate from Intercourse, Pa.  I had my office call a local florist and order an orchid to be sent to her at our townhouse. When I arrived home to see a long, prom-shaped, flower box, with a long-stem orchid, covered in plastic/glass at the tip, I knew this West Chester was not the same as the one where it was one word, just north of NYC. 

My first role was to over-see the broadcasting department of the twenty-four hour live network. Of course, once again, I had several layers of mostly former Franklin Mint Pennsylvanians above me so as not to cause too much initial stir among the ranks. But it didn’t matter, if Diller wanted to talk to me, he’d walk down from his office to my cubicle (not office) and loudly berate something, or more likely, someone he didn’t like. No amount of discreet eye-movement towards Diller could convince him that person he was referring to, (let’s call her Bisquit), was sitting in the cubicle right next to mine. 

Remember those “Stress Balls” made out of balloon material stuffed with bird-seed? QVC was selling them at the rate of $10,000 per minute. DPM’s they called that - dollars per minute.

“What are you doing?” said the voice on the other end of the phone. “And who is that woman screaming?” I was down in the QVC studio at the time, where “that woman”, Richard Simmons, was selling his $140 look-a-like doll and over-joyed with excitement that a testimonial caller had just rang in. Poor Richard was inconsolable earlier that day when he raced over, in his famous super tight poly/silk gym shorts and matching American Flag sleeveless t-shirt, to greet Diller. He hadn’t actually raced, it was more like a theatrical swoop.

“Oh, Mr. Diller, Mr. Diller…” squeaked Richard breathlessly and kinda sweaty.

Diller said, deeply, “How are you?”

Simmons, in his fluster at meeting his Lordship, thought Mr. Diller had said, “Who are you?” In a red, white and blue flash he scurried away and was back on-the-air, selling his look-a-like doll. “Oh, hellooooooo. And where are you calling from, sweetie pie?"

Later - “Please come to my office.” said the voice on the other end of the line. 

When I arrived, as if on cue, Diller had dug one of his famous thick black #2 perfectly sharpened pencils straight into a Stress Ball and it exploded all over his lap. For some reason my attention was instead drawn to a carved-out bagel with what must’ve been fifty perfectly round bagel dough bits inside, plus now some bird-seed. His likely tenth Pennsylvanian Gal Friday in two weeks, scurried in with a piece of paper she handed to the bird-seed covered CEO. He looked at it, crumpled the paper, threw it at her, and said, “Leavvvvvvve.” Drawn out -  like that. I couldn’t imagine why seeing Warren Beatty’s name on a piece paper could cause such anger. He then told me that it was my job to inform Richard Simmons he could no longer where that "outfit" if he expected to be back on QVC. I wasn't permitted to say, "Mr. Diller no longer wants..." I, in my role/title as SVP of Broadcasting Production Services, which read like the head of Food and Beverage, was to inform Mr. Simmons that he had to wear overalls and a white collared shirt if he ever expected to be back on QVC. You can't imagine how much more to the story there is.

PINK FLAMINGOS

Flash forward to Thanksgiving Day in in the late nineties at HSN, where I was EVP of Broadcasting, based in Saint Petersburg, Florida. The phone rings and a scratchy voice says, “Mr. Diller is calling from Cuba”. Cuba? He wasn’t lunching with Fidel, (or was he?)  but Mr. Diller's big boat was sailing nearby. “Happy Thanksgiving – can you meet me at the studio in Saint Pete tomorrow morning at 9am?” Gulp.

As we walked across the campus in searing heat, even in November, he said matter of factly, and as far as “out of the blue” as you can imagine, “Okay, now you’re going to be CEO at HSN. Surround yourself with smarter people than you are. I will help. Good luck. Don’t fuck it up.” He was then, and has always been the kind of leader who did those sort of things. Thank God.

You remember those days and those words like yesterday. I had never had P&L (Profit & Loss) responsibility in my career and now was the CEO of a $1 billion plus company that was flailing. First order of business was he wanted to have live pink Flamingos in the cays surrounding the HSN campus (they were actually swamps). We rented some live ones from Universal during a Christmas Fashion Event on HSN and lined them, along with and array of Poinsettia plants, along the runway dock across the “cay”. Of course, it wasn't really the first order of business but fixing the merchandise and the team is boring compared to the pink Flamingo story.

The special Christmas Show (you could still actually say Christmas in those days and everyone knew what it meant) opened live on TV to a close up shot of a live, rented big pink Flamingo chomping on a Holiday Poinsettia plant. The phone lines lit up and we thought we were “killing it” in terms of actual sales of the Faux Suede Terry Lewis Mason Jacket for $129.99 being featured at the open. 

Turns out four thousand loyal HSN callers flooded the call center informing us of the fact that Poinsettia plants were, in fact, poisonous. It was not the kind of “killing it” we had anticipated. Given it was “live” television we were quickly informed that our crack broadcast team already knew that they were poisonous – which is why our Holiday Poinsettia plants were made of cheap plastic. No matter what HSN show host Bobbie Ray Carter valiantly said on-air to that effect, the audience was fully prepared to soon bear witness to the expensive rented pink Flamingoes from Universal in Orlando, dropping dead into the “cay”. I envisioned a close-up shot of some skinny alligator – we had those, too – coming up and gulping down the Poinsettia poisoned Flamingos in one bite. Then maybe a fashion model would follow and be eaten alive live on TV Shopping. If only.

It wasn’t until a production assistant took one of the plants, off camera, and started chomping on it for Bobbie Ray to see. She got the hint. While her producer was screaming in her earpiece from the control room, “we’re killing the birds, we’re killing the fucking Flamencos! (sic).” Bobbie calmly picked up a fake Poinsettia plant, with the cameras moving in for a close-up, and started nibbling on the faux red flowers. “See, everyone… they’re fake. Can you imagine if we had real ones?  Oh, my word. Mr. Diller would have killed our CEO.” She was sort of right. My crew later made a Faux Flamingo Cart for me that I used my entire time on I worked there.  

Months later, Diller was introducing me to the newly acquired team from USA Networks; Kay Koplowitz, David Kissinger, Scott Greenstein, Donna Gigliotti, Ian Valentine and others I can’t remember, and showing off a bottle of Orange Glo, one of HSN’s current hot products of the moment. He opened it too quickly and it promptly spilled out all over the long table and onto the laps of many shocked executive team. At least they smelled Orangey. We didn’t need to clean that table for months after. That’s how good Orange Glo was. Years later I was to attend the funeral of the infamous Billie Mays, who launched Orange Glo and then Oxy Clean. His funeral was held in Pittsburgh, Pa. He was buried in a denim shirt with the Oxy Clean Logo on his shirt. Staying at the same hotel that night with all of us TV and Informercial Shopping People were the members of the annual Adult Furry Convention. Really. After all, it was Pennsylvania and fracking was very much in operation.

In between that first chopper ride to West Chester, where the whirling blades caused the Amish farmers to grip their round straw hats as we descended near their farms --- and an incredible four-year ride as CEO of HSN there were, as one could imagine, countless stories. You can bet there were plenty of learning experiences and how having some form of structure was important for a company that hadn’t had much of it at that point. All sorts of does and do nots that still make sense today. I wrote about many of them in an oft-referred to piece I did called “Amazon Ain’t Just a River in Egypt” for the Robin Report a few years ago. https://www.therobinreport.com/amazon-aint-just-a-river-in-egypt/  It’s not Marc Lore or Gary Vaynerchuk intuitive, but it’s a decent read and mostly still relevant to all the current frantic “what do we do next to survive the retail in a pandemic” hysteria we’re in the midst of. 

Being a CEO for the first time at age thirty-eight qualified me for membership in the Florida chapter of the YPO – the Young Presidents Organization. Along the way my team and I developed over two billion dollars of exclusive brands – many of which are still tent-poles of the company today. Some you’ve heard of, like Wolfgang Puck Cookware, Susanne Sommers Jewelry, Fitness, Apparel, et al, Jennifer Stallone’s (wife of Rocky) Serious Skin Care…and some less so, like Diane Gilman’s Skinny Jeans, Adrian Arpel’s Signature Club A and likely the most successful and profitable brands ever, Andrew Lessman’s Vitamins – still going strong today. Just ask Andrew – he will tell you. And well he should. The fact that the Katarina Witt Jewelry Collection didn't "scream" was besides the point. The Berlin Wall had just fallen only ten years prior. And until now, you probably didn't know that the three-legged panty hose for women was not a best-seller either. It was all about where one hid the third leg until it was needed that the buyers rejected it.

There’s another unknown brand I discovered that became perhaps the second most successful and popular TV shopping brands ever, Joy Mangano’s Ingenious Designs. When she was deep in the red whilst selling the Miracle Mop on QVC, I paid her ten million dollars, against the insanely loud protestations of Messrs. Diller, Victor Kaufman and Dara Khosrowshahi, (now CEO at UBER) and then his henchmen in NYC. She ended up selling more Huggable Hangers than McDonalds sold burgers. She also brought famous African-American model, IMAN, to the company as well as the sorta, semi blind Flamenco guitar player, Esteban to the network. His Esteban AL-100 Guitar Demo was a major hit. And yep – if you know the movie, “JOY” by David O. Russell – it’s about her, played fantastically by Jennifer Lawrence with Bradley Cooper based on yours truly. I recently read that Russell was thinking of doing the sequel, “KILL JOY”, but that’s not confirmed. 

Much of the above, and more, will be soon be heard in greater detail on Live Rocket’s “Diller Daze Podcast”, with stories that will make you want to buy Joy’s Huggable Hangers like their going out of style. Even though they have are.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! 

Being it's Thanksgiving – likely the most publicized and and now most terrifying holiday (or not) of our lifetime because of Covid, it felt like the right time to post again after staying deep in the weeds with my great growing team as we create my own modern version of a “4th Network” called Live Rocket.  Probably too much has been written about it before it even launches, but no matter. All that matters is that it does. And it most certainly will. 

It will be a giant culmination and mash-up of all of the above and it will be either a great and successful Diller-esq (ad)venture or a gigantic bomb. Exactly where I have played my whole life – for better or worse.

Make it a safe and healthy one. Hug your family – virtually or otherwise. 

Mark Bozek

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

New York

For Michelle. 

P.S. If you’re looking for the perfect Holiday gift, a brand I launched on EVINE Live called Beekman 1802 and grew in its short time there to over $20M and has now become the largest beauty brand in the history of HSN & QVC, (you’re welcome Mike!). They are wildly successful and at a great margin! This product is tongue-in-cheek – and perfect for the times. I've just sent a shit-load of them to Mr. Diller's ship. The location is top secret. https://beekman1802.com/products/goat-poop-seasonal-flavors?utm_campaign=shipment-delivered-email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=product&utm_term=link&utm_source=OrderlyEmails