Infomercials: the gold-paved superhighway.

The fastest-growing TV industry segment in the U.S. today is infomercials or long-form direct response commercials.

It's estimated that the TV, homeshopping industry should grow at the rate of 20 percent this year, and that gross sales will rise above the current $3.2 billion. Of this, close to $1 billion in 1993 came from infomercials, 10 minute to half-hour commercials that use star names to pitch product in a format that attempts to combine selling with entertainment.

It's also estimated that nine out of every 10 TV stations in the U.S. carry infomercials, some even in primetime. In Infomercials and the Future of Televised Marketing published by Prentice Hall, Craig R. Evans acknowledges that only 10 percent of all Americans buy from long-form commercials.

"The visionaries among us have already begun to look at television as more than simply an entertainment medium," Evans wrote. "The marketing possibilities inherent in the long-form commercial will change not just our viewing habits, but our buying habits as well," he stated.

According to the National Infomercial Marketing Association (NIMA) gross sales of products generated by infomercial programs have risen from $350 million in 1988 to some $1 billion in 1993, and the number of infomercial programs produced has grown from 80 in 1988 to about 175 in 1993.

More and more "name" performers are appearing in the huckster shows and there is a rapid rise in the number of advertising agencies and producers attracted to the field.

Infomercials are increasingly being accepted. Via NIMA, they now have their own awards structure and infomercial producers had their own pavillion at NATPE where they gained further station converts.

There was even an Infomercial Conference and Trade Show at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel last December. And this past winter in Los Angeles, UCLA Extension offered two classes designed to inform those who would like to enter that end of the industry.

Most TV stations, though, still have their reservations, due in part to the negative history of sleazy infomercials in the past years. One third of all stations now require cash in advance from infomercial producers, seeking to buy time; 28 percent of the stations insist on pre-screening the shows before running them, and more than seven percent of station managers simply refuse to run an infomercial featuring a 900 telephone number, where the phone fee goes to the producer.

Producers, syndicators and agencies tend to be drawn to the infomercial sector. The Tribune Co. is active in it, as well asking World and Sear's department stores.

It comes on top of the already well-established shopping channels and, like them, half-hour infomercials tend to be clearly identified as just that. The 900 or 800 number flashed on the screen allows viewers to place their direct orders and to identify the program as an advertisement. Ray Manzella, a talent manager said that the key to a successful infomercial is "the passion, the confidence and the believability radiated by the spokesperson for the product."

"A good infomercial needs simplicity, a straight-forward approach, not necessarily a lot of gloss," Manzella maintained.

Walter Manley, a veteran in film sales, has formed Palisades-lnfomercial Investors to develop, produce, test and market a number of infomercial programs over the next three years. Manley argued that "home shopping and infomercial programming will inevitably make up an ever-greater percentage of available programming. Home shopping's ultimate vision is to become a user-friendly video shopping mall, without the rent, personnel or overhead."

Manley sees infomercial advantages in the relatively low production cost of these commercials (from $50,000 to $200,000 each) and the fact that "the size of the audience has little or nothing to do with the sales of product because every viewer is a potential customer."

Success stories abound in the field. Victoria Jackson Cosmetics spent $400,000 on its infomercial and took in $50 million. Hooked on Phonics spent about the same and so far has generated sales of $60 million. Anoushka Cosmetics spent $100,000 and produced sales of $30 million.

These figures dazzle not only the stations, which share the income, but also producers and advertising agencies which, during the past year, have created special infomercial divisions. They see not only a productive format, attractive to the advertisers who are developing a taste for direct response TV, but also a flexible format that can be conveniently and regionally tested before significant chunks of time are purchased.