This is a noteworthy mindfuck. Not a local channel, but an international cable channel, a nakedly capitalist channel, a channel whose self-proclaimed reason to exist is pure consumption, a channel whose executives publicly gloat over extravagant and record growth, over scandalous profits. But I can offer enough statistical evidence to make an anarchist queasy. QVC reaches fifty-four million homes in the U.S., and four million with a U.K. version. It averages a hundred and thirteen thousand orders a day, handling up to fifty thousand in an hour.
Incoming orders average about two per second.
Thirty-nine million packages left its facilities in 1994. It introduces two hundred fifty products each week. Here's a jaundiced opinion. With nearly every one of these items comes a pack slip, listing reasons for return, requesting method of reimbursement, with a space for comments. I'm so sorry.