Packard executives soon discovered that Studebaker had been less than forthcoming in all of its financial and sales records. The situation was considerably more dire than Nance and his team were led to believe; Studebaker's break-even point was an unreachable 282,000 cars at a time when the company had barely sold 82,000 cars in 1954. Furthering the new company's problems was the loss of about 30% of Studebaker's dealer network by 1956 Don't shake hands until you see the ledgers. I think for the case of HSN and QVC though, maybe things will be in better shape? After all, one already holds a decent chunk of the other, so they probably know more about what they're getting themselves into. Then again, with the one-two punch of Amazon shopping and cordcutting media consumption becoming the norm, this might be too little way too late.
Studebaker - Packard is the case they always bring up im economics 101: two weaknesses do not equal a strength. QVC and HSN have similar weaknesses : 1) they both depend on people with cable who don't watch Netflix or Hulu or have a DVR 2) they both depend on people who like buying mail-order but hate shopping online The demographic for both is "old people". However, people getting older these days can figure out amazon. Shit, my 78 year old dad is a big fan of Woot. Which means HSN and QVC are reliant on old, stupid people. And they are dying out.
So how many years before these two channels die out? Unless they decide to change things soon in a big way, this sounds like a dinosaur waiting for that asteroid to hit it and die.