Behind the Scenes at QVC

Another appearance on the QVC shopping channel this weekend. The power of QVC is a little frightening. They say they are one of the largest digital TV production operations in the world. They have over 20,000 square feet of studio space in West Chester, PA. It consists of a variety of "home" sets (the living, bathroom, home office, garage, bedroom, etc.).

When you are on, you face two large monitors on the floor, and the TV cameras (duh). The cameras are robotically controlled by joystick in the control room upstairs. The floor monitor on the left shows how many minutes are left in your segment, the name of any callers on the phone, and the next camera shot being set up. The monitor on the right is the live feed. You wear a ear piece so the director can talk to you, and so you can hear callers. You are usually given 5-7 minutes for your "sell." The director is watching a line graph plotting phone calls and orders. If sales don't materialize fast enough, you may be cut short - or you may be given an extra minute or two if you're successful. The metric they watch is dollars per minute - and it's in the thousands.