Taken from Wikipedia:
History
The company has been in business since the late 1960s and is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They also have subsidiaries or other controlled entities in the US, the UK and Germany. In the UK the company is known as "K-tel UK Limited". In the US and Canada it is known as "K-tel International".
The founder of K-Tel was Philip Kives.[1] Kives, a fast-talking demonstration salesman who had previously sold cookware door-to-door, harnessed the power of television to sell Teflon-coated frying pans of dubious quality. Kives bought and a marketed a number of other products from Seymour Popeil, father of Ronco founder Ron Popeil such as the "Dial-o-matic," a type of food slicer that allowed the user to 'dial in' the thickness of slices produced, the Veg-o-matic, and the "Feather Touch Knife."
The combination of inexpensive goods, mail-order distribution and a well-honed simple sales pitch were a hard combination to beat. Kives took his "Feather Touch Knife" on the road starting in August, 1965 and by Christmas had sold one million knives with a net profit of one dollar a knife. [2] In 1966, Kives released K-Tel's first Compilation album, a collection of 25 Country songs.
K-Tel was formally founded in 1968. After a very successful 1970s, the company expanded rapidly both through acquisitions in their core area of business as well as diversifying into other areas. The company acquired rival Candlelite Records in 1980, and also formed subsidiaries in areas such as real estate and oil exploration[3]. By 1984, the high-risk ventures had sapped the company's fortunes and K-Tel was unable to meet the payroll. K-Tel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.[4]
Mickey Elfenbein, Mr. Kives' nephew was appointed CEO of the publicly-traded US entity K-Tel International in 1993[5] Elfenbein remained CEO of the company into the late 1990s, during which period the company achieved a strong resurgence in worldwide sales primarily of music-related products and had a successful NASDAQ IPO trading under the symbol KTEL. Elfenbein was recognized by Business Week Magazine in 1994 as the CEO of the 7th best publicly traded company in the country, based on growth and profitability.[citation needed]
K-Tel were unable to sustain the growth and profitability. The comapny was taken private in a 1 to 5000 reverse split on July 18, 2007[6] changing their symbol to KTLI and moving from the NASDAQ market to the over-the-counter market.
The company earned significant revenues with a move into the music business, capitalizing on the business of releasing compilation albums that combined material from a number of popular artists -- "20 Original Hits! 20 Original Stars!" -- on a single theme album.[citation needed] The company could earn significant revenue in this way, because they negotiated directly with artists and labels for the rights to reproduce their original recordings, in the process also securing a long-term asset through adding those recordings to their catalog.[citation needed] The company also created original records, the most notable of which were the "Hooked On..." series, starting with Hooked on Classics.[citation needed] In 1995, the company released the "Club Mix" dance compilation series, which became the highest selling music series in the company's history, with several RIAA Gold and Platinum certifications.[7] The Club Mix dance series was created and produced by Elfenbein's son, Mark Elfenbein, who was VP of A&R for the company throughout the 1990s.[citation needed]
Today, K-Tel remains one of the most well-known brands associated with TV marketing and the music industry, and the work of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s in amassing an extensive catalog that may turn out to be particularly shrewd. The company is hoping to leverage their significant back catalog in a digital rights and distribution offering that supplies content to large online music retailers such as iTunes, Puretracks and Amazon.com.
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(And they sound excellent)
