The publications were often subscribed by IT departments of major corporations, as a basis to evaluate and consider products for their company. PC Hardware and software publishers often contracted the company to perform compatibility and performance tests. NSTL passed through a series of owners, including publisher McGraw-Hill, before being acquired by Intertek in 2007. Public service In 1971, Segel was elected chairman of the Board of Governors of the United Nations Association of the USA. Two years later, President Gerald Ford appointed him as a member of the U.S. Delegation to that year's United Nations General Assembly, where he served under Henry Kissinger. He also organized a national campaign of the Advertising Council to improve public understanding of the United Nations, chaired a national conference on the United Nations for the American Society of Newspapers Editors and testified in support of the United Nations before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In 1986 he wrote an article in The New York Times in defense of Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim's recently discovered service as a Wehrmacht intelligence officer during WWII. QVC In 1986, Segel decided to start QVC ("Quality Value Convenience") after watching a videotape of the Home Shopping Network. Immediately, he identified many potential improvements, from the items offered for sale to their presentation. To lend credibility to the new company, QVC made a two-year deal to sell Sears products. He raised over $20 million in capital, including support from Ralph Roberts, the founder and chairperson of Comcast. Roberts was able to arrange deals in which cable companies received investment stakes in QVC in exchange for carrying the channel. Fifty-eight cable systems in twenty states signed on for the 7:30pm to 12:00 midnight broadcast, giving it an audience of 7.6 million TV homes for its November 24 launch. Publicly offered at $10 on September 5, 1986, QVC stock closed its first trading day at $20 per share, even though its first broadcast was months away. Segel demanded that the presenters sell by informing, not pressuring the viewers about the product. This meant that presenters would have to study each product, explain the many benefits of the product, and know the product's sales history in order to make the sell more informative and entertaining. He forbid the hard sell and, unlike the Home Shopping Network, established that customers could purchase at any time, with no last minute price cuts, and no high