Mizrahi Hits Cable TV, Hawks Cheesecake

For starters, it makes viewers feel like friends

(NEWSER) - Nearly 25 years after its inception, the QVC network has become "one of the most effective retailing machines ever invented," writes self-described "closet fan" Megan McArdle at the Atlantic . The network didn't reinvent retail, but it's perfected many of its tenets, she explains. Among them:

• Intimacy: QVC's approach is "less a sales pitch than a coffee klatch where friends trade tips on hot new products." The hosts connect by telling a story—"a story about the viewer, and the product’s place in her life."

(NEWSER) - Project Runway is back after an interminable absence on a new network in a new city, but critics agree the fashion design reality show has kept all its charm intact.

• PR has "hopped channels from Bravo to Lifetime with none of its appeal damaged in transit," Troy Patterson writes on Slate. And the move from NYC to LA has the show "cultivating an US Weekly populism and making its take on the grammar of chic more approachable."

(NEWSER) - TV pitchman Billy Mays was laid to rest today in his hardscrabble hometown of McKees Rocks, Pa., the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Friends described his determined rise from the mill town to the malls of New Jersey to the hallowed heights of the Home Shopping Network. “If there was a Jimi Hendrix of the guitar, there was a Billy Mays of the pitchmen,” a colleague said. More»

Legal jousting over, show back in summer to face Bravo knockoff

(NEWSER) - After a nearly season-long hiatus, Project Runway will finally be back on air this summer, the Washington Post reports. In an out-of-court deal, the Weinstein Co. has agreed to pay NBC for allowing the show to move to Lifetime. And—as is common in the fashion world—NBC plans to copy Runway style and offer a near clone of the longtime Bravo fixture. More»

Struggling brand hopes savvy designer will revive slumping sales

(NEWSER) - Designer Isaac Mizrahi recently previewed his Liz Claiborne line of women's wear, an extreme makeover that could make or break the company, the Wall Street Journal reports. The brand, which generated almost half of the company's $3.1 billion in sales and more than half of its profits in 2000, now struggles to break even. More»