Qvc Inc

Move over, MTV. Here comes QVC. That's right music fans. In between the blond women selling jewelry and the dermatologists shilling skin-care products, television retail channels are booking live musical acts -- and not off-brands, either. Think LeAnn Rimes, Barry Manilow and the Goo Goo Dolls. Manilow is preparing for his second QVC gig this fall to promote his new CD, "The Greatest Songs of the Seventies."

Regulators sued home shopping channel QVC Inc. on Wednesday, charging that it made deceptive claims about weight-loss products sold on the air. The complaint from the Federal Trade Commission accused QVC of false advertising of For Women Only weight-loss products such as zero-fat and zero-carb pills. It also alleged unsubstantiated claims about Lite Bites "fat-fighting bars" and other weight-loss or energy-boosting products.

Liberty Media Corp., the media-investment company controlled by billionaire John Malone, said Monday that it would exercise an option that may trigger the sale of the QVC home-shopping network it owns with Comcast Corp. Either Liberty, Comcast or a third party can buy QVC under the option. Comcast is more likely to consider a purchase than Liberty, which could use sale proceeds to finance acquisitions, analysts said. Comcast, the biggest U.S.

Liberty Media Corp. agreed Thursday to spend $7.9 billion to purchase control of the hugely profitable home shopping channel QVC, a move that comes on the heels of the company's efforts to snap up Vivendi Universal's U.S. entertainment assets. The timing of the purchase from Comcast Corp. -- which will give Liberty the 57.5% of QVC that it doesn't already own -- caught many by surprise.

The QVC shopping channel on Thursday was hawking, among many things, Shadow Fern area rugs ($39.19), Keds Smooth Stretch Slip-on Comfort Clogs ($28.40) and Sun Laboratories Instant Self-Tanning Spray ($19.93). Over the years, such items have been very good to the channel, whose owner announced that control of QVC itself is being sold for a price that is far beyond what most of its viewers are accustomed to paying: $7.9 billion.

General Motors Corp. said Monday that it would market Saturn models on the television home-shopping channel QVC next week to try to attract more women to the unprofitable division's vehicles. The 55-minute advertising program will air the evening of Aug. 5 and will offer incentives to buyers, said Chuck Thomson, the division's executive director of marketing. He wouldn't disclose the incentives or cost of the ad, which he said is the first by an automaker on QVC.

Liberty Media Corp.'s $7.9-billion purchase of Comcast Corp.'s controlling stake in QVC, the largest home shopping television network, was cleared by U.S. antitrust authorities, the Federal Trade Commission said. Liberty, the media investment company controlled by John Malone, agreed last month to buy Comcast's 57% stake in QVC. Englewood, Colo.-based Liberty already owns 43% of QVC and minority stakes in News Corp. and other firms.

The pen was mightier than the word when late-night television crossed the final shopping frontier early Saturday. Two Russian cosmonauts aboard the Mir space station, appearing live on the QVC shopping channel, set out to hawk the American-made $32.75 Fisher Space Pen, used on NASA spaceflights since 1967 because it can write in the absence of gravity.

FTC Clears Sale of QVC Shopping Channel: Two of the nation's largest cable companies received permission from federal regulators to acquire QVC Inc., which runs a cable television shopping channel, for $1.42 billion. The Federal Trade Commission voted 4-0 to close an investigation into the transaction, announced in July. The move frees Tele-Communications Inc., the nation's largest cable company, to increase its 23% stake in QVC to about 43%. Comcast Corp., ranked No.