Buzz
If you’ve ever stumbled upon late-night infomercials and ended up ordering a quirky kitchen gadget, you owe a debt to Philip Kives. This Canadian visionary revolutionized TV marketing, selling everything from non-stick cookware to fishing gear, with his crowning achievement being the K-Tel compilation albums. These records became the vinyl-era equivalent of Spotify, transforming Kives and K-Tel into household names.
It all started with polka music.
Breaking Records
Kives (pronounced Kee-vuss) showed early signs of his business acumen. Growing up in 1930s Canada, he trapped weasels and sold their pelts for 50 cents each, a venture he later saw as a precursor to his natural entrepreneurial talent. (Another version of his rise to success involves trading gopher tails, which were lucrative due to the animal’s overpopulation in the area. It’s possible he did both.)
Kives eventually relocated to Winnipeg, where he drove a taxi and sold kitchenware door-to-door. In his early thirties, he ventured to Atlantic City, where the Boardwalk was filled with street vendors selling goods—some legitimate, others less so. Kives refined his sales techniques there, and upon returning to Canada in 1962, he created and starred in a TV demonstration for a revolutionary nonstick frying pan. Despite paying for the airtime—making it arguably the first TV infomercial—the product wasn’t flawless: the pan’s coating stuck to the eggs during the demo.
Despite the hiccup, Kives was captivated by television’s potential to reach massive audiences. “In stores, you’re pitching to maybe a dozen people at once,” he told The Age in 1978. “But with TV, I realized I could pitch to thousands simultaneously. It was a game-changer.”
Kives’s empire grew as his gadgets gained popularity. He traveled to Australia to market the Feathertouch Knife, his first major success. The knife’s razor-sharp blade could slice tomatoes without crushing them and even cut through leather, making it perfect for live demos. Kives sold a million units at $1 each. He also secured distribution rights for products like the Pocket Fisherman, created by Sam Popeil, father of infomercial legend Ron Popeil.
Kives found product pitching far “easier” than working on his family’s farm. His sales pitches often featured the now-famous tagline “As Seen on TV” and the iconic phrase, “But wait, there’s more!” Kives typically wrote and directed the ads, enlisting Winnipeg radio personality Bob Washington for voiceovers.
By 1966, Kives’s company, K-Tel—short for “Kives Television”—was thriving. That year, Kives had a groundbreaking idea that would elevate his success to new heights. He secured the Canadian distribution rights to 25 Country Hits
At the time, the idea of a compilation album was virtually unheard of in the music industry. Once albums were released, their tracks were rarely revisited. Kives managed to license singles from record labels for as little as 2 to 4 cents per track, helping them profit from their older catalogs. In exchange, he offered listeners a fresh mix of songs within their favorite genres. The appeal lay in the numbers—albums like “20 original hits” from “20 original stars” or “30 masterpieces” sold the promise of variety and value. Thanks partly to a Bobby Darin “bonus” track, 25 Country Hits sold 180,000 copies.
On Track
After dominating the Canadian market, Kives and K-Tel turned their attention to the United States. Following the success of the psychedelic Groovy Greats, Kives released 25 Polka Greats, which sold 1.5 million copies. This cemented K-Tel’s reputation as a leader in compilation albums, a trend that defined their business throughout the 1970s.
Titles like 60 Flash-Back Greats of the ‘60s (a four-record set), the funk-heavy Super Bad featuring Isaac Hayes’s theme from Shaft, and 24 Great Truck Drivin’ Songs with Hank Snow’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” became instant bestsellers, flying off the shelves.
The albums were a hit primarily because their $4.99 price tag was much more affordable for consumers compared to purchasing individual 7-inch singles. Occasionally, record labels would sell a single to Kives on the condition that he also take a less popular track. This arrangement benefited everyone, though some listeners noted that the audio quality wasn’t perfect. To fit as many songs as possible, the vinyl grooves were pressed tightly, and some tracks were shortened.
Kives didn’t limit himself to compilations. His Hooked on Classics project featured the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra reimagining classical masterpieces with a disco beat, making them appealing to modern audiences. Like 25 Country Hits, it was aggressively marketed until it became a cultural phenomenon. (On Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd parodied Kives’s enthusiastic style by promoting the Bass-o-Matic, a device that could liquefy fish instantly—a nod to K-Tel’s Veg-o-Matic, which shredded vegetables.)
What set Kives’s compilation albums apart was their availability. Instead of directing customers to music stores, he sold them in drugstores, department stores, and even hardware stores. Kives also interacted directly with artists when possible. Liberace once invited him to dinner, while Sammy Davis Jr. reportedly shouted at him after rejecting a business proposal.
Kives reportedly sold over 500 million records. CBS executives even visited Winnipeg to learn marketing strategies from him. By 1978, the albums accounted for 80% of K-Tel’s revenue, with $33 million spent on TV ads. Though profit margins were slim, the company still made around $4 million annually during the 1970s.
The compilation albums kept K-Tel successful until the 1980s, when Kives made several poor business choices. He invested in real estate just before an oil crash caused prices to plummet and acquired rival Candlelight Music, resulting in an $18 million loss. These missteps led to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
In the 1990s, Kives made a comeback, steering K-Tel back to compilations and infomercials. His 101 Country Hits, a 10-CD set, was marketed directly to consumers through TV ads featuring musician Eddie Rabbitt. Similarly, The Ultimate History of Rock'N'Roll, another extensive collection, was promoted by Bobby Sherman.
These ads often created a sense of urgency, encouraging viewers to act quickly by offering free CDs or records to the first callers. The format and energetic pitches were later adopted by Now That’s What I Call Music!, a series of contemporary hit collections that launched in the UK in 1983 and the U.S. in 1998. This shift toward curated music collections became the norm, especially with the rise of streaming platforms.
Kives’s influence extended beyond inspiring modern streaming services. With K-Tel owning over 200,000 songs, he played a role in supplying content for Apple’s emerging iTunes platform. Today, K-Tel continues to operate, licensing music for films and TV shows, such as featuring Bobby Helms’s “Jingle Bell Rock” in season 2 of Stranger Things.
Kives remained dedicated to his As Seen on TV product line, constantly seeking new items like the Fishin’ Magician and the Miracle Brush, essentially an upgraded lint roller. He even introduced a transparent birdhouse, aptly named The Birdhouse, allowing users to observe bird eggs through its clear plastic design.
When Kives passed away at 87 in 2016, K-Tel had cemented its legacy, and Kives left behind a compilation of his own—a series of remarkable success stories.
This article was originally published in 2022 and has been updated in 2024.
