The robotic cameras, space shuttle-like control rooms, jam-packed warehouses, unscripted presentations, a relaxed — not frantic — pace and the sheer numbers of home TVs reached, gadgets sold and billions of dollars generated right in West Chester’s backyard at QVC are simply staggering, especially to Daily Local News columnist Bill Rettew Jr., who chronicled a behind-the-scenes look at the local home shopping giant for NewsInPenn.com.

“Fascinated, I watched the nearly non-stop live broadcast produced in my backyard,” Rettew noted in the article about his tour of QVC’s studio.

Constant activity surrounds the single centralized studio in preparation for the 57 different shows that capture the interest of 300 million households in the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Ireland and China.

And at the center of the spotlight is one of 27 show hosts, an entertainer, educator and salesperson who talks “almost non-stop with no script, no delays, no teleprompters and only a handful of 5-by-7 cards.”

“… Your neighbor or the guy in front of you at the Wawa might be famous in Sacramento or Tulsa and you wouldn’t even know it,” Rettew wrote about the QVC hosts he saw on the tour.

Read much more about Rettew’s insider tour of QVC, the influential West Chester employer of 2,800 that raked in $8.8 billion in 2014 and shipped 173 million products across the globe on Pennsylvania News here.

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Top photo courtesy of the Baltimore Sun