Канадалық K-tel компаниясының тарихы

Canadian international budget record label

K tel International Ltd is a Canadian company which formerly specialized in selling consumer products through infomercials and live demonstration. Its products include compilation music albums, including The Super Hits series, The Dynamic Hits series and The Number One Hits series and consumer products, including the Record Selector, the Veg O Matic, the Miracle Brush, and the Feather Touch Knife. The company has sold more than half a billion units worldwide. K tel is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and has been in business since the late 1960s. It has subsidiaries or other controlled entities in the US and UK.

K tel was founded by Philip Kives, a demonstration salesman from Oungre, Saskatchewan. Kives had worked at a number of jobs as a young man, including selling cookware door to door and in a department store, and as a pitch man on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. In 1962 he used his own money and his fast talking demonstration style to create a new kind of television advertisement in Canada. His first product was a Teflon coated frying pan. He made a deal with the Eaton's department store to carry the product and with a local television station to air the commercials on a per inquiry basis with a guaranteed minimum. Kives bought and marketed a number of products from Samuel Popeil, father of Ronco founder Ron Popeil, including the Dial O Matic and Veg O Matic food slicers and the Feather Touch Knife. In August 1965, he began selling the Feather Touch Knife in Australia and by Christmas had sold one million knives. Kives later began sourcing his own products, including the Miracle Brush, which sold 28 million units. K tel was formally incorporated in 1968, with Kives as CEO. The company operated profitably during the 1970s and expanded both through acquisitions in its core area of business and diversification into other areas. Kives' cousin Raymond worked as president of the K tel US division from 1967 to 1977, and the K tel Europe division from 1977 to 1984. In the five years prior to 1981, K tel sold more than $150 million of LPs in 34 countries. Its sales increased from $23 million in 1971 to $178 million in 1981. when Candlelite's customers refused to pay for their shipments. The failure of this and several other high risk ventures forced the publicly traded US entity, K tel International, to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1984. In 1986, the Bank of Montreal foreclosed on the K tel Canadian subsidiary at the same time as the US Chapter 11 filing. Advised by Minneapolis based Sullivan Associates, K tel negotiated settlements with banks and other preferred and unsecured creditors. Six years later, after all the legal battles, a settlement was reached with the Bank of Montreal, and in 1991, Kives got his Canadian company back. In 1993, K tel earned a $2.7 million profit on sales of $56 million, and in 1994, ranked #7 on BusinessWeeks annual Hot Growth List. Mickey Elfenbein, Kives' nephew, was appointed CEO of the K tel International division in 1993 and served until the late 1990s. Elfenbein's son, Mark, produced the company's highest selling music products of the 1990s with the creation of the "Club Mix" series which reached RIAA gold and platinum sales success. K tel increased its worldwide sales, primarily of music related products, and had a successful NASDAQ IPO trading under the symbol KTEL.

In mid April 1998, during the dot com bubble, news that the company was expanding its business to the Internet sent the thinly traded stock shooting from about $3 to over $7 in one day (3:1 split adjusted). The short interest of the stock swelled. The price of the stock peaked at about $34 in early May, and began to decline, reaching $12 in November and eventually pennies. The sudden upswing was fuelled mainly by a large short squeeze. Traders with short positions either "bought in" or were forced to cover positions at very high prices because of the great losses. In 2007, Philip Kives took K tel private again. The company completed a 1 for 5000 reverse split on July 18, 2007, reducing the number of public shareholders to under 300 and allowing the company to delist. It changed its symbol to KTLI and moved from the NASDAQ to the over the counter market.

The company now earns profits from its catalogue of Billboard charting hits, by the original artists, particularly songs from the 1950s through the 1980s. Tracks include "The Twist" by Chubby Checker, "What I Like About You" by the Romantics, "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard, "Surfin’ Bird" by the Trashmen, and "Help Me Make It Through the Night" by Sammi Smith. K tel distributes 200,000 songs worldwide per year on digital platforms, including Amazon, Spotify and iTunes, and licenses songs from its catalogue for use in commercials (e. g., Nike, Fiat, Coke and KFC), films (e. g., Spider Man, Baby Driver, The Dallas Buyers Club and Hotel Transylvania 2) and television programs (e. g., Stranger Things, Ray Donovan, Breaking Bad, Californication, Mad Men and Transparent). K tel Records has also produced a Canadian children’s music group called Mini Pop Kids, a series of recordings in which a group of Canadian children aged 10 to 14 sing family friendly pop hits. The series is promoted by a touring group that performs shows across Canada. K tel’s company founder Phillip Kives died in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, on April 27, 2016.