Amazon’s own take on a QVC-like home shopping experience, “Style Code Live,” has gone off the air. The live program, first launched in March 2016, was streamed online and via mobile to Amazon shoppers, who could learn about fashion and beauty tips from style experts, then instantly shop the products being featured on the show. Just ahead of the Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S., “Style Code Live” announced it would air its final program.
The news of the program’s termination was first reported by Page Six, which heard from a source close to production that the termination was announced abruptly at a staff meeting on Friday.
“There’s no more shows, but everyone can stay on until July with pay to help cancel current bookings and wind things down,” the source said staff were told, according to the report.
Amazon confirmed the show’s cancellation with TechCrunch, but declined to share any numbers related to the show — like how many viewers it had attracted the year-plus it was live, or how many sales it had generated.
In case you missed it the first time around, “Style Code Live” was ultimately an experiment as to whether or not Amazon could reproduce the same sort of influence that YouTube stars and others on social media have to power sales across the retailer’s site.
The program’s hosts — Lyndsey Rodrigues, Rachel Smith and Frankie Grande (Ariana’s brother) — all had TV and broadcast backgrounds before joining Amazon. Rodrigues previously hosted MTV’s “Total Request Live,” while Smith was a correspondent at ABC News. Grande was more of a TV personality, having appeared on CBS’s “Big Brother 16” and on Broadway in “Rock of Ages.”
The overall format was something akin to a cross between QVC’s host selling experience and the sort of fluffy daytime TV programming where you’d see segments focused on fashion makeovers or other style and beauty tips. The show even was able to pull in some star power for its launch, with big names like Grammy winner Meghan Trainor, actress Keri Russell and YouTube star Tati Westbrook stopping by. Later shows included appearances by Sarah Jessica Parker, Kourtney Kardashian, Kelly Osbourne and Ariel Winter.
Page Six tied the show’s shutdown to Amazon’s larger struggles to produce hit television programming — a reference to the cancellations of Amazon shows like “Good Girls Revolt” and others.
That comparison feels off the mark, however.
Amazon, if anything, has been steadily improving its video content over the years, having even taken home Emmys for shows like “Transparent,” “Lost in Oz” and others. It recently won a Golden Globe for legal drama “Goliath,” plus its first Golden Globe film award for “Manchester by the Sea,” and its first set of Oscars, too.
Instead, Amazon’s “Style Code Live” seemed to be more of an effort by the retailer to attract the same kind of audience who today turn to YouTube stars and Instagram influencers to discover the best new products, fashion, accessories and makeup, then push those consumers to shop instantly on Amazon’s site.
Connecting with influencers is something Amazon has been focused on more recently — having even launched its own social media influencer program this March.
In any event, it appears that Amazon’s live TV efforts weren’t a success, regardless of whether you think of it as another Amazon TV failure or something else.
On Friday, the show’s social media accounts announced that the evening’s program would be its last. Its Facebook and Instagram posts stated the following:
“As they say, all good things must come to an end. Tonight’s SCL Rewind will be our last show. Thank you for watching, chatting, and shopping along with us over the past year—we’ve loved every moment with you. Our viewers and followers have inspired us in so many ways and there is more to come, so ‘stay tuned!’ (And—of course—you can always discover and shop the latest in fashion and beauty on Amazon!) We hope you’ll join us one last time tonight as we run through the best of this past week. Thank you, Decoders!”
The show’s social media accounts have since been deleted.
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