ShopHQ

About ShopHQ

Overview

ShopHQ was an American home-shopping television network and e-commerce retailer based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Founded in 1990 as ValueVision and launched on television on March 12, 1991, the company operated for more than three decades as one of America's major televised shopping channels, selling jewelry, fashion, beauty, electronics, and home goods through live on-air presentations and its companion website. Over its history the network cycled through a dizzying series of names — ValueVision, ShopNBC, ShopHQ, Evine Live, Evine, and back to ShopHQ — as ownership changed hands. The television network ceased broadcasting on April 17, 2025, following the bankruptcy of its then-parent company, iMedia Brands. In October 2025, The Arena Group acquired the brand's intellectual property and customer archives and relaunched ShopHQ as a digital-only retailer focused on social commerce. Its website is www.shophq.com.

Founding as ValueVision

ValueVision was founded in June 1990 and began broadcasting in 1991, entering the televised home-shopping business pioneered by QVC and the Home Shopping Network. Based in the Minneapolis suburb of Eden Prairie, the company built studios, call centers, and distribution facilities in Minnesota and positioned itself from the start as an upscale alternative to its larger rivals, with an emphasis on jewelry and higher-end merchandise. The network grew steadily through the 1990s as cable television expanded, establishing itself as the industry's third-largest player behind QVC and HSN — a position it would hold, through all its later name changes, for most of its existence.

The NBC Era: ShopNBC

In 2000, NBC purchased an equity stake in ValueVision, and that November the network was rebranded as ShopNBC, adopting the peacock network's branding and logo. The NBC partnership gave the shopping channel mainstream credibility and marketing muscle, and during the ShopNBC years the publicly traded company solidified its standing as America's third-largest shopping channel. The relationship was not without turbulence: reports surfaced in 2010 that NBC would sell its stake amid NBCUniversal's pending merger with Comcast, and though NBCUniversal formally announced a sale back to ValueVision Media in May 2010, it ultimately retained its stake for several more years. In 2013, ValueVision acquired NBCUniversal's financial stake in the company outright, ending the partnership — and with it, the right to use the NBC name.

Becoming ShopHQ

Following the 2013 buyout of NBC's stake, the network was renamed ShopHQ. The new name was meant to signal a fresh start as an independent company, and the channel continued its formula of live product presentations across jewelry, fashion, beauty, and home categories. The ShopHQ era also saw the company lean into celebrity-driven merchandising as a differentiator: under new management, the network courted recognizable personalities to pitch exclusive product lines, a strategy aimed at distinguishing it from QVC and HSN in a maturing market.

The Evine Years

On February 13, 2015, the network was rebranded again — this time as Evine Live — following ValueVision Media's acquisition of the e-commerce company Dollars Per Minute, Inc. Founded by Russell Nuce and ValueVision CEO Mark Bozek, Dollars Per Minute operated an online shopping service called Evine, and Bozek believed the new name would distance the company from negative consumer perceptions attached to the ShopHQ brand. The parent company changed its corporate name to Evine Live, Inc. as well. The Evine era brought a burst of show-business energy: the network hired former QVC host Kathy Levine, aired "Mark Cuban's American Dream" in 2014 as part of a celebrity-host strategy under Clinton Group management, and featured merchandise from reality stars including Lisa Vanderpump, Countess Luann de Lesseps, and Paula Deen, who pitched cookware and food products. The company described itself with the motto "We are rebels, risk-takers and retail underdogs," and its core customer skewed female — about 75 percent — with household incomes between $75,000 and $125,000.

Celebrity Merchandising Strategy

Throughout its later years, the network's defining commercial strategy was exclusive celebrity and designer brands. Paula Deen's cookware and food lines, Lisa Vanderpump's jewelry collections, and partnerships with brands like MacKenzie-Childs and Waterford gave the channel products viewers could not find elsewhere. Lifestyle expert Jorge Perez and host Brian Kessler became familiar faces on Waterford crystal segments, and the network's buyers pursued dozens of home-category launches each year — home accounted for about 18 percent of the business and was growing. The strategy reflected the reality of televised retail: in a market dominated by QVC and HSN, exclusive brands and personalities were the only reliable way to stand out.

Return to ShopHQ

In 2019, owner iMedia Brands reversed course: the 2015 name change to Evine was judged ineffective and confusing to customers, and the network was rebranded once more as ShopHQ. The relaunch came with new studio sets, new hosts, and plans for a customer loyalty program. CEO Tim Peterman, who had taken the helm in May of that year, put the customer at the forefront of the turnaround effort. The network remained available through local cable channels as well as Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, select Samsung Smart TVs, and YouTube. But the business faced mounting structural headwinds: cord-cutting was eroding the cable audiences that home-shopping channels depended on, and the company's finances remained fragile.

Decline and Closure

The end came quickly. In January 2025, the channel announced 128 layoffs while insisting it was staying in business and merely "moving away from cable." In April 2025, parent company IV Media announced the closure of ShopHQ's Eden Prairie facility, with 72 more workers losing their jobs. Jewelry trade publication JCK reported that a company executive had emailed vendors to say ShopHQ would be "closing imminently" and that the company was "wrapping up operations"; hosts and vendors posted farewell messages on social media, with host Jason Zimmer writing that the channel was "now officially closed." The television network ceased broadcasting on April 17, 2025, and as of April 18, 2025, all items purchased from ShopHQ became final sale. The website was taken offline in May 2025 following the bankruptcy of iMedia Brands, ending the company's 35-year run as a multichannel retailer.

The Arena Group Relaunch

The ShopHQ brand did not stay dormant for long. In October 2025, The Arena Group — the digital media company behind properties including Sports Illustrated — acquired ShopHQ's intellectual property and customer archives and relaunched the brand as a digital-only retailer focused on social commerce. The television network was not revived; instead, the new ShopHQ operates as an e-commerce and social-commerce platform, selling through its website and social channels rather than through televised presentations. The relaunch reflects the broader migration of home shopping from television to digital: the live-video retail format that ShopHQ pioneered on cable now lives on social platforms, and the brand's new owners are betting that its name recognition and customer base can translate to that environment.

Legacy in Televised Retail

Across 35 years and five names, the company now known as ShopHQ was a fixture of American televised retail. It demonstrated that a third national shopping channel could survive alongside QVC and HSN by targeting a slightly more upscale customer, and its constant reinventions — from the NBC partnership to the celebrity-brand strategy of the Evine years — chart the industry's attempts to stay relevant as shopping moved online. Its Eden Prairie campus was for decades one of Minnesota's most distinctive media operations, a television studio complex devoted entirely to selling. The brand's survival as a digital-only retailer means the ShopHQ name endures, even as the television network that carried it for most of its life has gone dark.

How to Shop

ShopHQ now operates as a digital-only retailer at its official website, www.shophq.com, where customers can browse jewelry, fashion, beauty, and home products and shop through the company's e-commerce and social-commerce channels. The television network is no longer broadcasting, and the Eden Prairie studios have closed. Customers with questions about past television-era orders should consult the website's customer service resources.

In summary: ShopHQ was a Minnesota-based home-shopping television network founded in June 1990 as ValueVision (on air from March 12, 1991), rebranded as ShopNBC in 2000 after NBC took an equity stake, renamed ShopHQ in 2013 after ValueVision bought back NBC's stake, rebranded as Evine Live/Evine from 2015 to 2019 following the Dollars Per Minute acquisition, and returned to the ShopHQ name in 2019 under iMedia Brands. Long America's third-largest shopping channel behind QVC and HSN, it pursued exclusive celebrity brands including Paula Deen, Lisa Vanderpump, and Waterford. The TV network ceased broadcasting on April 17, 2025 amid iMedia Brands' bankruptcy, and The Arena Group relaunched the brand in October 2025 as a digital-only social-commerce retailer at www.shophq.com.