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. History 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. The company diversified, forming subsidiaries in areas such as real estate and oil exploration and also acquired rival Candlelite Records in 1980. K-tel lost $15.9 million when Candlelite's customers refused to pay for their shipments. The failure of this and several other high-risk ventures forced the