TVSquad

Clay Aiken's career track is an interesting one. For someone with my musical tastes and interests, he virtually disappeared after his season of American Idol was over. His act is really just not for me. Unlike so many other also-rans from the show though, a couple times a year, he pops up again. Clay is performing here. He's sold another million albums there. And along the way he's managed to build one of the most devoted fan bases anyone could ask for.

That brings us to the latest rise of Clay on to the radar for the rest of us. He's kicking off the release of his fourth studio album next Monday, with an appearance on QVC. I'm reminded of Arsenio and the old "things that make you go hmmm" bit. I'm not sure I get it, but we should probably just not question Clay's judgment. He seems to be doing alright. He's never going to have the media exposure of Kelly Clarkson, but he's not going to just fade away either.

[ via E! Online ]

Via the AOL viral video site This Just In (AOL also owns TV Squad) comes a video featuring a very young-looking Mike Rowe (currently the host of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel) selling a cat toy on QVC. Rowe was a presenter on the channel in the early '90s.

Give Rowe credit, because he's trying his best to sell a product that is, for all intents and purposes, a glorified grocery bag, but how enthusiastic can the poor guy get about a bag that even QVC's resident cat doesn't seem to care about? I suppose he could have got inside the bag himself . . . oh wait, he did.

It seems like HSN has been promising this for a long time, but that time is finally here. The shopping network is debuting its shop-by-remote system for digital TV customers. HSN viewers have to pre-register their credit card information with the network and then point and click. No special remote or cable box is needed.

When it comes to interactive television, we're a little behind the times here in the good ol' USA. Britain and Asia have 39 interactive television channels but the technology development here in the US has been a little bumpy.

HSN shop-by-remote will be available first in New York and Hawaii and other cities will get the service in coming months.

American Idol judge Paula Abdul, who is known for making pieces of jewelry to give contestants in order to inspire them, plans to actually launch her own line of jewelry through QVC. The new line will be called the Paula Abdul Jewelry Collection. That sounds rather generic, if you ask me. They couldn't have gone with "Forever Your Girl" or something similar? Abdul will introduce the line before a live audience on QVC on April 21. Her signature jewelry will consist of charms, bracelets, earrings, and similar items. Like the jewelry she creates for the Idol contestants, these will also be adorned with words of inspiration. Twenty-six pieces will be introduced initially, with more set to be launched in the month of May.

The FCC just released a report that says Americans would save up to 13% on their cable bills if the cable companies would just let us buy channels individually. That can't be making the cable companies happy, which insist on not only pushing channel packages on us, but also on raising their rates as much as 6% each year.

Channels I'd dump if I could buy cable a la carte: