Ideal's Beginning

You guys have probably seen this but last night messing around on youtube, i came across a programme, about how ideal world started.

2 owners, who seemed to have real passion in the channel that they were about start, even though they werent very good at finding products, but luckly they left that to paul lavers, debbie flint, and steve whatley, who even found there eqvuilant of diamonique for em, called gemasis, anybody remember it. And that it was a rush to get the studios ready, and get some of the staff, who i didnt realise at the beginning, a lot came from QVC.

Of course by the end of there first year, they suffered a devasting fire, which destroyed the channel for 18 months by the sound of it, and some bits of it have seemed to have struggled since then, according to stuff i found on wikipedia, the youtube programme, really got me interested into finding out more.

A fire obviously would knock the stuffing out of a company. And hense why less heart is in it since.

Are the orginal owners still involved, is matt wright who works for garden bargins, any relation to the first owner.


Do any of you remember the channel before the incident, or were watching it at the time.

Yep, I remember it before the fire, it was fantastic!

Steve Whatley was the real highlight - I loved his shows - 'Whatters Craaaazzzeee Christmas' used to be hilarious and fantastic. He used to present 'Consumer Choice', and, of course, since he has left, it hasn't been the same. He used to have a real passion for his products. He could have been selling dog poo or something (and quite often, some of the products were of similar quality) and, I would have bought it. :taphead:
I was watching the night it went off air, and eagerly was awaiting the return.

Ideal World wasn't the same after the fire, they tried to recapture the warmth of the old days, but it just didn't happen. When Steve Whatley left, I tuned off for years.

Here's the opening night - keep an eye out for a young Ellis, and, the very drippy Shaun. :grin:


Paul Lavers was awesome too. He was proper hilarious - I used to wonder if he was drunk! :beer:

The link doesn't work for me (even though I can only try on my iPhone at the min)

There first ever ittem on a sale was a VW Beetle thats very up class to some of stuff they sell these days, but hey you can buy the showroom shine to make the car nice and sparkly

Bring Paul Lavers back! Let's get a group running! :happy:

Aint seen him for years, my dad last saw him on entrourpeur channel, i no thats not how its spelt i dont think, and he was selling some system.

but yeah be good to see lavers back, probably more chance with IW, than QVC, as im guessing he burned his bridges, but was funny.

The clip shocked me, how many items they got through in that half an hour, and seemed to have good guests, And wasnt shaun a total dish those days.

The beetle was very nice......!
But with no flexi pay that would put me off purchasing.

A car? Wow! I wonder how may they sold. Isn't Caroline Lindsay on Bid or price drop now?

petpixie said:

A car? Wow! I wonder how may they sold. Isn't Caroline Lindsay on Bid or price drop now?

Click to expand...

There was just the one car as I remember Pixie. It would be awesome if they did stuff like this again! :cheeky:

I loved those early days of IW too because to me Steve made the channel so much fun. Yes, he was hyper at times and definitely could have even sold sand to the Arabs! He worked very hard to rebuild it after the fire but I do think it went downhill again when he left to promote his "Zhuzh!" on the cruise ships and spend more time with his wife....so I've read anyway. How very sad that he chose to take his own life when his troubled world became too much. He was a great character and I'm sure is still missed by so many people today.

Wow! Watched that programme last night Jazz! It was interesting to see Steve Whatley throwing a right royal hissy strop over being 'Third in the f**king pecking order' and not liking it. Real eye opener.

Here's the documentary for those of you interested. :thinking:

I remember the night the fire happened at ideal world, the screen went blank then a message was posted on it for months about a fire and they would resume programming as soon as possible. They worked from mobile huts for a while.

I don't think the channel changed because of the fire, I think it changed because of the buyers not sourcing good enough items to sell and decent presenters leaving.

In the old days I bought a fair few things from them but can't even begin to think of the last time I watched it for more than 5 mins.

How do they keep going selling 3 or 4 items over and over. Surely they can't have enough new clients to keep that going

I much prefer ellis's hair the way it used to be.

im sure on the first day they started selling signed photos because they didn't have much to sell ???

What an interesting program, it just goes to show that they where struggling right from the start.
At one stage Debbie says they would only have had 20 items to sell, that's 10 more than they have on air most days
now how did it go so wrong??

I guess to be fair to IW, they havent got the backing from anotther countrys like another channel, which means its probably harder for them to source products, so stick to what they now well. Pressure Washers, Halogen Ovens, Slinky Fashion, Trees and Plants, Showroom shine, Bissells, Bras, Laptops and Tablets, Beauty and so on which wrote like that sounds lots, but in reality its not.

What strikes me about this clip ,is that in 12 years ,the production values are as cheap and amateurish,as they were on day one.I really find that incredible and I'm genuinely confused hoiw the hell they've lassted so long.Poor products,poor customer service,and tacky badly produced promos and shows.

Whatters was very keen on the 3 month MBG...90 days as oposed to the qvc 30 MBG. This was cut back to 30 days after he left and now is down to 14days. I think the 90 days worked well at the outset, I assume it was intended to instill confidence in buying from IW and I'm sure many buyers simply forgot to return items in that length of time. QVC really suffered at the loss of their key presenters to IW, and when Dave Bradford and Dean left to go to Shop! there were hardly any amusing hours on QVC. It's a real shame that the key opposition to QVC have never got enough of a foothold to keep QVC on their toes. Had HSE stayed in business they could have offered serious competition with the HSN infrastructure behind it but sadly they pulled out of the UK and sent UK branch of HSE into administration.

We're stuck with mediocre offerings from QVC because they lack any real competition.

Jude xx

I remember watching the documentary when first shown.

Dirty deeds indeed. The woman owner hated Debbie Flint and used the F word describing her and she quickly disappeared from the channel.
Paul got the boot but they did the dirty by keeping in him contract for the full term so he could not go to another channel until it was up.