PriMedia Inc is a media buying and marketing firm based in Rhode Island, U.S.[2][3] The company was founded by Ed Valenti and Barry Becher,[4][5] and helped pioneer infomercials, the use of credit cards and 800 numbers on Television ads, and the 30-minute infomercial format on shopping channels.
[6][7][2] PriMedia (then named Dial Media) was founded in 1975 by Ed Valenti and Barry Becher.
[8] PriMedia became the first major infomercial company and launched several mainstream products including the Ginsu knives.
[9] The company also developed the “long-form” infomercial formats, which later developed into standard half-hour infomercial formats used in Home shopping channels including QVC and HSN.
Primedia was one of the first to use toll-free telephone numbers in television ads to allow use of credit cards to order products in real-time.