ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604290061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
QVC SET UP SHOP in Roanoke Saturday, offering smoked fish, apple juice and peanuts to viewers around the country.
With shoppers strolling along behind them on Market Street, QVC hosts hawked smoked bluefish.
Roanoke got sunny, splashy national television exposure Saturday afternoon when home-shopping television giant QVC broadcast for two hours from the Roanoke City Market.
With shoppers strolling along behind them on Market Street, QVC hosts Judy Crowell and Bob Bowersox hawked smoked bluefish, apple juice, peanuts and 15 other products made in Virginia from their impromptu parking-lot stage.
When one of the five cameras spun their way, West and Sue Francus waved from the back of the audience, hoping to be seen by his mother, a QVC fan in Westchester, N.Y. She asked them to be at the show so she might get a glimpse of them.
Virginia is the first of 10 states that QVC is spotlighting for merchandise manufactured within their borders. Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Maine are the only other states announced so far for the series of live, on-location shows QVC calls "Quest for America's Best."
The electronic retailer broadcast from Jamestown and Williamsburg on Monday, Irvington and Fredericksburg Tuesday, Leesburg Wednesday, Luray and Waynesboro Thursday and at The Homestead resort in Hot Springs Friday.
Today it will broadcast two shows from the Governor's Mansion in Richmond. Gov. George Allen's economic development officials worked for weeks to help set up the QVC tour of Virginia.
Today's first show, from noon to 2 p.m., is titled "In the Kitchen with Bob" and will feature Rubbermaid spatulas made in Winchester.
Another show from the mansion, between 5 and 8 p.m. today, will promote cotton rugs from Burlington Industries Inc. in Glasgow, athletic shorts from Tultex in Martinsville, T-shirts from Bassett-Walker Inc. in Martinsville, furniture from Bassett Furniture Industries Inc. in Martinsville and fitness equipment from Nautilus International Inc. in Independence.
Most people in Saturday's Roanoke audience, seated in rows in the Allright parking lot next to Carlos' Brazilian International Cuisine, were QVC customers invited by the network to the show and treated to T-shirts and samples of the food products promoted there. The program, aired between 4 and 6 p.m., was transmitted via satellite from QVC's bright orange bus, a 45-foot-long mobile studio parked in the back of the parking lot.
Featured products included smoked fish from Outer Banks Seafood in Richmond, chocolate peanut brittle from the Virginia Diner in Wakefield, pecan caramel chocolate snappers from the Cocoa Mills Chocolate Co. in Lexington and odor-free garlic bulbs from Jewelrina Inc. in Leesburg.
Roanoke folksinger Curley Ennis and his String Lizards performed during the show.
A QVC spokeswoman said the network had been taping feature material on the City Market and the Roanoke Valley for several weeks. Taped interviews with City Market vendors and other valley personalities and landmarks were interspersed throughout the live broadcast.
A 40-member crew from QVC headquarters in West Chester, Pa., was in Roanoke to produce the show. QVC says it reaches 54 million homes across America.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. 1. Trudy Young (left) andby CNBNancy McDaniel of Roanoke say they watch QVC religiously. ``I think
Nancy and I keep them in business,'' Young said. They received free
T-shirts. 2. Rowena's of Norfolk sells lemon pound cake and lemon
curd live on QVC in the Allright parking lot beside Carlos'
Brazilian International Cuisine restaurant and Sam's on the Market.
More than a dozen other Virginia products also were featured in the
``Quest for America's Best.'' color.