Jewelry TV aims to buy Shop At Home
By CARLY HARRINGTON, harringtonc@knews.com
June 8, 2006/Knoxville News Sentinel (subscription), TN
Knoxville-based Jewelry Television is acquiring the assets of the struggling Shop At Home network.
The deal, which has not been finalized, will help Jewelry Television meet its growth goals, spokeswoman Kelly Fletcher said.
“From a technology standpoint, it was too good of a deal to pass up,” she said.
The E. W. Scripps Co. announced last month that it planned to close the Nashville-based network, which was founded in Newport in 1986 to sell satellite equipment to satellite TV viewers.
Cincinnati-based Scripps acquired Shop At Home in two transactions with a total value of about $285 million, acquiring controlling interest in October 2002 and buying the remaining interest in April 2004 along with five Shop At Home-affiliated broadcast television stations.
Shop At Home was not profitable when Scripps bought it, but Scripps hoped the channel would provide a shopping outlet for products related to Scripps’ cable networks Home & Garden Television (HGTV), Food Network, Do It Yourself Network and Fine Living.
Scripps also owns the News Sentinel.
June 9th, 2006
The Guy Behind Gem Jewelry Takes On Weaver - And Wins!
Hartford Courant, United States
Stanley Frank is nervous. Neither he nor his wife, Jean, slept the night before. In a few minutes, he will tell his life story to 300 battle-hardened, world-weary ninth-graders at Hartford’s Weaver High School. The notecards he holds are a thin shield against failure.
Seated with him in the principal’s office, Patricia Nelson, the school’s lead guidance counselor, commiserates. As many times as she’s stood before the students, she still gets butterflies.
With them is Frank’s wife, the gracious Jean. She reminds him that he is a good speaker.
But this is not the chamber of commerce. This is a young crowd hungry for authenticity, and capable of being vocally unimpressed.
About a month ago, Frank, Weaver Class of ‘55 and president of Gem Jewelry, called the school’s principal, Paul Stringer, to say he wanted to give back to his alma mater. Could they use $20,000?
His timing couldn’t have been better. Hartford is being strafed by gun violence. These students own large collections of RIP T-shirts. What they need are scholarships - but would Frank come meet the students? They would benefit from someone who ricocheted through the North End streets, even 50 years ago.
Back in the day, Frank was a punk. He came from a home that went beyond dysfunctional. That’s not an excuse, but it is part of an explanation as to why a guy like Frank - a guy with potential - kept on being bad. He wanted to hurt people the way he’d been hurt. At age 10, he threw bricks through school windows. At 13, he broke into another school and went wild vandalizing. He made his first appearance in court a year later for an unrelated crime. He graduated from Weaver solely because the principal talked one of his teachers into giving Frank a passing grade.
In his 20s, he learned how to use dice and cards, and then he joined the Elks Club to scam people at poker. He gambled. He collected addictions. In a world of large cigars and first-class tickets, Stanley was a hale-fellow-well-met - but keep your hand on your wallet and your woman. He danced through the court system on five separate occasions. He told his gracious wife, “It’s a toilet world,” and she’d sigh and say, “Only in your head, Stanley.”
(That wife is with him still, but that is another story.)
The last arrest - in ‘65 - was the best thing to happen to him. He cleaned up his act. He found a passion for sales. In the ’70s, he and Jean opened Gem Jewelry; now they have four stores. The punk made something of himself, but that’s not enough.
The Franks’ offer floored Nelson. The school gets phone calls from alumni, but not often, and a gift this size is rare. When Frank handed the check to Stringer, Nelson leaned over to look at the zeros.
“I was so impressed,” Nelson said. “He was so down-to-earth; he just wants to give back.”
One of Frank’s friends warned him not to go to Weaver, but Frank knows that’s part of the problem. We wall off our cities and then sit on our decks in the suburbs and marvel at how bad things are over on Vine Street or up on Nelton Court. If the students need authenticity, Frank could give them that.
So Tuesday, he took a deep breath, looked down at his notecards, and told the freshman class his life story. At first, they tittered. Then they giggled. And then they got quiet.
He hit the highlights, and then he said that life wasn’t fair and that Hartford’s violence is about retaliation and power. Life isn’t about that, Frank said. You have to give. When he finished, the applause was sustained. Stringer told the students that Mr. Frank believed in them, but first he had to believe in himself. Afterward, a few teachers shook his and Jean’s hands, and then one skinny girl in pink Tims walked up and said quietly, “Thank you.” And then she was gone.
Later, on the way to a staff meeting where he and Jean would get a standing ovation, Frank turned to his wife and said, “Did I do alright? Was that OK?”
“You were great,” she said. “You did great.”
June 9th, 2006
WDC PARTICIPANTS INVITED TO JOVELLA JEWELRY TRADE FAIR
Tacy, Israel/8 June 2006
Participants in the World Diamond Congress, to be held in Tel Aviv from June 26 – 29, will also be able to take in the latest innovations on the Israeli and international jewelry scene. Jovella 2006, Israel’s International Jewelry Trade Fair, will be held during the Congress, from June 27 – 28 at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv.
Exhibiting in Jovella will be 160 jewelry manufacturers and designers, diamond and gemstone suppliers and related companies from Israel, Italy, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Thailand, Brazil and China. Over 10,000 visitors — from the trade and the public – from Israel and from abroad, are expected to attend the show.
The show is being organized by the Stier Group, in cooperation with the Israel Jewelry Manufacturers Association (IJMA), which reports that this year there has been record demand for exhibit space, and that there is a lengthy waiting list of exhibitors.
Israeli jewelry is known for creative design, high fashion and excellent quality, and is sold in the finest stores in the world’s major cities. Israel’s jewelry industry reflects a mélange of cultures and traditions, combining the exotic with the state-of-the-art, and the ethnic with cosmopolitan. In 2005 Israel exported close to US$400 million worth of jewelry worldwide.
Among the delegations expected at Jovella is a group of jewelers from the Palestinian Authority, which has been invited to attend by the Peres Center for Peace.
A special visit to Jovella will be organized for Congress participants and guests, on June 28. According to Ilan Samuel, a member of the Congress Organizing Committee and Chairman of the Jewelry Sector Committee of the Israel Export Institute, the juxtaposition of the two events offers Congress participants added value. “Jovella is the foremost event of Israel’s burgeoning jewelry industry. It offers the freshest Israeli designs, and the best in high quality production. We are certain that Congress participants will take special interest in visiting the show,†he said. Samuel added that among the exhibitors at Jovella will be manufacturers with gold, silver, diamonds, precious gems, and designer pieces. He said that the show will also include fashion jewelry, religious jewelry, as well as jewelry from new and unusual materials.
June 9th, 2006
