Format has grown from comics' punch line to a bottom-line boost

By DONNA PETROZZELLO DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Believe it or not, the infomercial is 20 years old.

And how it has grown.

Today, the often mocked format is as much a part of the TV landscape as sitcoms and ­reality shows.

The genre has been spoofed on "Saturday Night Live" and is frequent fodder for late-night comics. However, as America laughs, product pitchers are making big bucks.

The diet aid Herbalife was among the first infomercials to break big during the mid-'80s, with a spot that aired late at night on USA Network.

Since then, infomercials have created some of the best-known faces in America.

·  Self-help guru Tony Robbins has sold more than $300 million of his products through infomercials. Football great Fran Tarkenton anchored Robbins' first spots in 1995. Leeza Gibbons anchored another.

·  Ali MacGraw and Lisa Hartman opened the way for actors to appear in informercials when they turned up in a 1989 makeover spot for Victoria Jackson Cosmetics.

·  Based on the success of Jackson's infomercials, ­actress Victoria Principal began hawking her own skin-care and beauty products.

·  Former Miss America Vanessa Williams has ­appeared in a spot for Proactive Acne Treatment.

Marketing is the mother of invention

Ron Popeil, creator of kitchen products and the famed Pocket Fisherman, may be the best-known infomercial star and salesman. His company, Ronco, has generated $1 billion in sales of rotisseries, roasters and other gismos.

"I'm an inventor first and a marketer second," Popeil said. "But what drives the invention is the marketing. Most of my inventions are related to the kitchen because everybody's got one."

He has dabbled out of the kitchen, too, with such products as GLH Formula #9 spray-on "hair" to cover bald spots.

"People always want to buy a product from its inventor," said Popeil, who has adopted the nickname America's Inventor.

Infomercials were born out of a Reagan administration ruling in the mid-1980s that lifted restrictions on how much commercial time stations could air. As a result, struggling cable networks took hold of the concept and sold large chunks of time to the highest bidder.

Savvy marketers then created spots designed to look like TV shows, while including a call-in sales pitch.

"Infomercials were a saving grace for a lot of independent TV stations and cable networks," said Steven Dworman, author of "$12 Billion of Inside Marketing Secrets Discovered Through Direct Response Television Sales."

Over time, the appeal of info-mercials has been, in part, the mix of products, running from the useful to the incredibly useless - all sold with the seriousness of an evening newscast.

"These pitches are still incredibly convincing and incredibly effective, even on people who know better than to buy this stuff," said Syracuse University Prof. Robert Thompson.

"But my guess is that a lot of people are watching them with a portion of their tongue in their cheek," Thompson added.

Whether they're reaching for their pocketbooks or just laughing along with the product pitchmen - people are watching - and buying in huge numbers

Forbes

Even broadcast giant NBC, a unit of General Electric, got into the act with ShopNBC, a home shopping channel 60% owned and operated by ValueVision Media. Home

shopping in the U.S. is itself a $6 billion industry-and growing.

Infomercials have been around in one form or another since the beginning of television. But the modern industry got its start in 1984 when the Reagan Administration

deregulated the airwaves and renounced rules limiting the number of commercial minutes that could be broadcast in a given hour. With the change in policy, coupled by

The growth of cable television, infomercials took off.

Since the beginning, certain products have tended to proliferate in infomercials, and they still do. Response reports that cosmetics and personal care is the leading

product category on infomercials, followed by housewares and appliances-the famous vegetable slicer. Health and fitness products are the next most popular.

Industry insiders say these products are sold on TV because they require a lot of demonstration. But the prevalence of diet products and hair loss remedies gives rise to

the impression that infomercials sell a lot of shoddy wares. Insiders don't deny that there are con artists in their midst. "Are there bad people in the industry? Absolutely.

I hate them!" says Earl Greenberg, an infomercial impresario based in Santa Monica, Calif. But they say they are working hard to weed out scofflaws, both from within

the industry and with U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which can only help its business overall.

Infomercial marketers want to rid themselves of their image as fly-by-night. They note also that most products advertise through direct response  media and is actually

sold in traditional retail channels. The hoary slogan ?Not sold in stores'  has become the exception to the rule. At the same time, they say infomercials are still a haven for

untested entrepreneurs who can't afford slotting fees charged by retailers or who simply can't get in the door.

Infomerciaiatistas are nothing if not relentless-and resistance to their pitches may be futile, especially as digital television takes hold. With more channels to surf and

increasingly balkanized audience, there will be more places to sell. In Europe, in fact, the future has arrived already. In contrast to America, which has to make due with

Just four national home shopping channels, the TV Guide in England list 35.