Remember when you’d wake up at 2am on a Tuesday, unable to sleep, and find yourself hypnotised by a bloke in a cheap suit flogging a set of “miracle” steak knives? Or when your mum rang you at work, absolutely buzzing because she’d just scored a “genuine cubic zirconia” necklace for $29.95 plus shipping?

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Australian TV shopping networks. A billion-dollar industry that somehow convinced an entire generation that buying things off the telly at ungodly hours was not just acceptable, but completely normal.

The Pioneers: When Demtel Made Infomercials Cool (Sort Of)

Before we had dedicated shopping channels, we had Demtel. And if you grew up in Australia in the 80s and 90s, you absolutely remember Demtel.

“But wait, there’s more!”

That phrase is seared into the collective Australian consciousness like a cattle brand. Demtel didn’t just sell products; they created an entirely new form of entertainment that sat somewhere between advertising and sketch comedy.

Tim Shaw, the face of Demtel, became a household name by shouting at us through our televisions. The man had the energy of someone who’d consumed seventeen Red Bulls and then remembered he left the oven on. His infomercials were manic, repetitive, and absolutely impossible to look away from.

The Demtel formula was simple but effective: take a mundane household problem, make it seem catastrophic, then present a solution that was somehow both revolutionary and costs just $19.95. The demonstrations were always slightly unhinged, featuring people who apparently couldn’t perform basic tasks without specialized equipment.

Cutting vegetables? Impossible without the Turbo Tiger. Cleaning? A nightmare without the Shower Power. Opening a can? Absolutely treacherous without the One Touch Can Opener.

Demtel’s genius was understanding that Australians would watch these infomercials ironically, talk about them at work the next day, and then… actually buy the products. They turned advertising into water cooler conversation. They made being sold to feel like being part of a club.

The products themselves ranged from genuinely useful (the Ab King Pro probably helped at least three people) to completely baffling (do we really need to discuss the Tummy Trimmers?). But it didn’t matter. The infomercials were the show, and the products were almost secondary.

TVSN: When Shopping Became a Lifestyle Channel

Then came TVSN (Television Shopping Network), which launched in 1996 and took the concept to its logical extreme: what if shopping was the ENTIRE channel?

While Demtel gave you frantic 30-minute bursts of product evangelism, TVSN offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week of smooth-talking hosts gently coaxing you to buy things. It was less aggressive, more seductive. Shopping as ambient entertainment.

The TVSN hosts were a different breed from Tim Shaw’s caffeinated chaos. These were your friends. Your well-dressed, perpetually cheerful friends who just happened to be really passionate about demonstrating the features of a steam mop.

The network created genuine celebrities. People knew the hosts by name, had favourites, would tune in specifically because certain presenters were on. They weren’t just salespeople; they were personalities. They’d chat about their weekends, their families, their own experiences with the products. It built trust, intimacy even.

The programming had rhythms. Jewelry hours. Kitchen hours. Fashion hours. Electronics hours. Regular viewers knew the schedule better than they knew their own family’s birthdays. There was comfort in the predictability.

TVSN also understood the loneliness factor better than anyone. They weren’t just selling products; they were providing companionship. The hosts would read out buyers’ names on air, creating a sense of community. “Congratulations to Margaret from Wagga Wagga on snagging the last cubic zirconia pendant!” Margaret felt seen. Margaret felt special. Margaret bought seventeen more items that month.

The call-in segments were pure theatre. “The phones are absolutely running hot!” they’d exclaim, as a graphic showed stock levels supposedly plummeting. Whether this was real or manufactured scarcity didn’t matter. The urgency was intoxicating.

The Products: A Greatest Hits of Questionable Purchases

Let’s talk about what Demtel and TVSN actually convinced us to buy, because this is where things get properly cooked.

The Demtel Classics:

The Turbo Tiger was legendary. A chopper that could apparently dice vegetables faster than a professional chef, except your professional chef didn’t look like they were operating a medieval torture device. Every Australian kitchen had one. Most used it twice.

Shower Power promised to clean your bathroom while you slept, which seemed like witchcraft but was really just chemicals. The infomercials showed people scrubbing bathrooms like they were excavating dinosaur bones, then effortlessly spraying Shower Power and walking away. The reality was somewhat less miraculous, but we bought it anyway.

The AB-Doer, Ab Rocket, Ab King Pro, and whatever other ab-related contraption Demtel could dream up. The demonstrations always featured people with already incredible physiques, suggesting that buying the equipment would somehow transfer their genetics to you. Spoiler: it didn’t.

The Grab It gripping tool, perfect for people who apparently couldn’t reach things. The infomercials made grabbing items from high shelves look like a life-threatening activity that required specialized equipment. Old mate would wobble on a chair, nearly fall to his death, then discover the Grab It and suddenly life was worth living again.

The TVSN Favourites:

Jewelry. So much jewelry. TVSN could dedicate four hours to a single type of semi-precious stone. Tanzanite became a household word despite nobody really knowing what made it special. The pitch was always about the “incredible value” compared to retail prices that were almost certainly made up.

The Victoria Weick handbags became cult items. Not because they were particularly special, but because TVSN sold them so hard that people started collecting them. The hosts would stroke the leather with the kind of reverence usually reserved for religious relics.

Kitchen gadgets that promised to revolutionize your cooking. The Kitchen Wizard. The Nicer Dicer. The Slice-O-Matic. Every single one promised to make food preparation faster and easier, and every single one ended up in a drawer, unused, next to the Turbo Tiger.

Collectible coins and plates. TVSN shifted mountains of “limited edition” commemorative items celebrating events nobody cared about. “Only 5,000 will ever be made!” they’d promise, which sounds exclusive until you realize 5,000 is absolutely heaps. Your nan definitely bought several sets of these.

Electronics that were outdated before they arrived. DVD players in the streaming era. Tablet computers that were basically fancy photo frames. Digital cameras when everyone had smartphones. But the hosts made them sound revolutionary, and people bought them.

The Psychology: How They Got Into Our Wallets

The techniques Demtel and TVSN used weren’t revolutionary, but they were perfectly executed for Australian audiences.

Social proof on steroids. “Thousands of Australians have already ordered!” Whether this was true or not didn’t matter. Nobody wants to miss out on what thousands of other people apparently have.

The demonstration deception. They’d show you someone struggling with a basic task in the most incompetent way possible, then show the same task being completed with their product by someone who’d clearly practiced the motion 400 times. Your brain registered the difference as the product being miraculous rather than the demonstration being rigged.

Manufactured urgency. “Call in the next 15 minutes!” On a 24-hour shopping channel. The irony was lost on nobody, but it worked anyway. That countdown timer created a panic that logic couldn’t override.

The price anchoring con. “Valued at $400, but today, just $99.95!” That $400 valuation came from absolutely nowhere, but once it was in your head, $99.95 seemed like a bargain. Never mind that the actual value was probably $23.

The bonus cascade. “But wait, there’s more!” became a meme because it was so effective. You’d be almost convinced about the main product, then they’d pile on bonuses. A second one! A carrying case! A DVD with instructions! By the end, you felt like you’d be stupid NOT to buy it.

Payment plan psychology. “Just four easy payments of $24.95!” sounded so much better than $99.80, even though it was obviously the same money. Breaking it down made it seem manageable, affordable, practically free really.

The Hosts: The Real Stars

Tim Shaw was the king, but he wasn’t alone. Demtel and TVSN created a whole ecosystem of personalities who became weirdly famous.

Shaw had a particular gift for making terrible products sound essential. He could sell you a rock and convince you it was the rock you’d been missing your whole life. The intensity, the repetition, the barely controlled chaos of his delivery, it was hypnotic.

The TVSN hosts were smoother operators. They’d refined the art of the soft sell to perfection. They could talk about a handbag for 45 minutes without repeating themselves or losing enthusiasm. That’s a genuine skill.

Some hosts became beloved figures. People would write in asking about them. They’d receive Christmas cards from viewers. The parasocial relationships were real and, for some viewers, genuinely meaningful.

The behind-the-scenes reality was apparently brutal. Hours of live television, having to be enthusiastic about the same product repeatedly, hitting sales targets, maintaining that perfect presenter energy. Some hosts lasted years. Others burned out fast.

When the Cracks Started Showing

The internet didn’t kill TV shopping networks immediately. The decline was gradual, then suddenly catastrophic.

Early warning signs appeared in the mid-2000s. Price comparison websites made the “valued at” claims laughable. You could find the exact same products on eBay for a fraction of the price. The “incredible value” pitch started looking more like “outrageous markup.”

Online reviews destroyed the carefully curated demonstrations. That non-stick pan that was supposed to last a lifetime? Reviews showed it started sticking after a month. The miracle cleaning product? People posted photos of it not working. The fitness equipment? Videos of it breaking or being completely impractical.

Social media accelerated the decline. Screenshots of ridiculous product claims became memes. TikTok videos parodying infomercial tropes went viral. The next generation didn’t see these channels as entertainment; they saw them as jokes.

The demographic cliff was the real killer, though. The core audience for TV shopping was aging, and nobody was replacing them. Younger Australians didn’t watch traditional TV, let alone shopping channels. They bought things online from their phones, in seconds, without needing to call anyone or wait weeks for delivery.

COVID-19 should have been a lifesaver. Everyone stuck at home, watching more TV, online shopping booming. But it didn’t help because it accelerated exactly the wrong things. It taught the last holdouts how to shop online properly. Grandma finally figured out how to use Amazon. Game over.

Demtel’s Disappearance

Demtel quietly faded rather than dramatically collapsing. The infomercials became less frequent, then rare, then effectively extinct.

Tim Shaw moved on to other ventures. The brand got sold, changed hands, became something different. The glory days of shouting at Australians at 2am about the Turbo Tiger were over.

The products lived on in weird ways. You can still buy Demtel-branded items, but they’re not the cultural phenomena they once were. They’re just products now, stripped of the manic infomercial magic that made them special.

The legacy is mostly in our collective memory. Every Australian over 30 can do a Tim Shaw impression. “But wait, there’s more!” remains in the lexicon. The Demtel era shaped how we think about advertising, skepticism, and the art of the hard sell.

TVSN’s Long Goodbye

TVSN hung on longer than most expected, but the writing was on the wall by the 2010s.

They tried to adapt. Website upgrades. Social media presence. Live streaming. Integration with online shopping platforms. But it was like teaching a dinosaur to use an iPhone. Technically possible, but fundamentally awkward.

The TV channel continued broadcasting, but increasingly to smaller audiences. The business shifted online, with the TV component becoming almost a legacy system. The hosts were still enthusiastic, the products still “incredible value,” but the magic was gone.

Viewership numbers told the brutal story. From millions to hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. The once-mighty network was now background noise in aged care facilities and the occasional insomniac’s living room.

By the 2020s, TVSN existed more as a zombie than a thriving business. Still technically alive, still broadcasting, but lacking the cultural relevance and viewer engagement that once made it a phenomenon.

The Cultural Impact Nobody Talks About

Here’s what’s interesting: Demtel and TVSN fundamentally changed Australian consumer culture in ways we don’t really acknowledge.

They normalized remote shopping before the internet made it mainstream. The idea that you could buy things from your couch, sight unseen (well, except for the demonstration), and have them delivered to your door? That was revolutionary in the 80s and 90s.

They trained us to be skeptical. If you grew up watching Tim Shaw claim that a plastic chopper was the greatest kitchen invention since fire, you developed a finely tuned bullshit detector. Those skills transferred directly to spotting online scams and dodgy marketing.

They created the template for influencer marketing. The friendly, enthusiastic host demonstrating products while building a personal connection with the audience? That’s exactly what influencers do, just on different platforms.

They made impulse buying socially acceptable. Before Demtel and TVSN, buying something on impulse at 2am seemed slightly unhinged. After? It was just Tuesday.

Where Are They Now?

Demtel is essentially dead, existing only as a brand name occasionally slapped on products sold through other channels. The glory days of revolutionary infomercials are over.

TVSN technically still operates, but it’s a shell of its former self. The TV channel broadcasts to minimal audiences while the actual business happens online, competing with every other e-commerce platform and losing.

Tim Shaw occasionally pops up in Australian media, doing interviews about the Demtel era. He’s become a nostalgic figure, a reminder of a simpler time when you could shout at people about cleaning products and they’d buy them.

Some of the TVSN hosts are still presenting, older and grayer, flogging jewelry to an ever-shrinking audience. Others have moved on, retired, or disappeared from public view.

The products themselves? Still available, usually. You can buy a Turbo Tiger on Amazon. You can find TVSN jewelry online. But without the theatrical presentation, without the manufactured urgency, without the charismatic hosts, they’re just… products. Ordinary, unexciting products.

The Real Legacy

Demtel and TVSN weren’t just about selling stuff. They were about entertainment, community, and the strange intimacy of late-night television.

They filled lonely hours for insomniacs, shift workers, and new parents. They provided company when there was none. They made people feel connected to something, even if that something was a jewelry sale.

They created shared cultural experiences. Everyone remembers the same infomercials, the same catchphrases, the same absurd product demonstrations. They’re part of Australian pop culture history, as much as Vegemite or Kylie Minogue.

They represented a brief moment when television shopping was the future. When the idea of buying things remotely seemed revolutionary rather than mundane. When a charismatic host could move millions of dollars of merchandise through sheer enthusiasm and repetition.

That moment passed. Technology moved on. Consumer behavior evolved. But the memories remain, filed away in the collective Australian consciousness alongside other relics of our recent past.

Why We’ll Never See Their Like Again

The conditions that made Demtel and TVSN possible no longer exist.

We don’t have captive audiences anymore. Nobody’s stuck watching whatever’s on TV at 2am because there are no other options. You’ve got Netflix, YouTube, TikTok, gaming, endless entertainment alternatives.

Price transparency killed the “valued at” scam. You can check real prices in seconds on your phone. You can read reviews from thousands of real customers. The information asymmetry that made TV shopping profitable has been destroyed.

The trust factor has shifted. Younger consumers trust influencers, user reviews, and friend recommendations over TV presenters. The parasocial relationships have moved to social media, where they’re more interactive and feel more authentic.

Convenience has been redefined. Next-day delivery is standard. Same-day delivery is common. Why would you call a phone number, wait on hold, give your credit card details to a stranger, and wait weeks for delivery when you can click a button and have something tomorrow?

The demographics have fundamentally changed. The generation that made TV shopping networks profitable is dying off, and there’s no one to replace them. Gen Z would rather chew broken glass than call a phone number to order something.

The Takeaway

Demtel and TVSN rose because they solved a problem: how do you shop from home when alternatives are limited? They succeeded because they were entertaining, persuasive, and perfectly targeted at Australian sensibilities.

They fell because they couldn’t adapt fast enough to a world where better, faster, cheaper options existed. The internet didn’t just compete with TV shopping; it completely demolished the business model.

But they left their mark. They changed how Australians think about remote shopping. They created catchphrases that outlived the products. They trained a generation to spot marketing bullshit. They provided companionship and entertainment to millions.

Now they’re nostalgia. A connection to a simpler time when the biggest decision was whether to ring in about the cubic zirconia pendant or wait for the jewelry hour tomorrow.

For those of us who remember, they’re a reminder that every era has its own weird quirks. That what seems normal and successful today might seem hilariously outdated tomorrow. That business models aren’t eternal, demographics shift, and technology always wins.

Somewhere right now, at 2am on a Wednesday, TVSN is probably still broadcasting. Some host is demonstrating a handbag with genuine enthusiasm to an audience of dozens. The phones might even be running warm, if not hot.

And maybe, just maybe, someone’s watching and reaching for their credit card, ready to buy something they absolutely don’t need.

But wait, there’s more!

Actually, there isn’t. That’s the whole point.

The show’s over.