Sensing the sales potential of live, on-air product selling, Lowell 'Bud' Paxson and financier Roy Speer co-founded a local cable TV channel (channel 52 on Vision Cable) in 1982 that sold products directly to Florida viewers, and then launched nationwide in 1985. The channel was the Home Shopping Club, later Home Shopping Network, and Paxson's former radio man Bob Circosta was tapped as the network's first-ever host. HSN soon became a billion dollar enterprise and began the home shopping / electronic retailing industry. In 1996, the two sold HSN to Hollywood executive Barry Diller.