NBTV wants your television to close the sale

The interesting object in a cooking show is often the least glamorous one. A jar on the counter. A bottle beside the stove. You see it, decide it might improve dinner, and then face a small administrative ordeal: remember its name, find a shop, locate the right version. NBTV has built its commerce business around that interval. The jar gets a button. The programme continues. The shopping happens where the desire began.

A studio notices the missing door

NBTV’s starting advantage was knowing how to make something people might watch. Nick Buzzell came through MTV, CBS and NBCUniversal; co-founder Mike Buzzell brought software experience. Their company combined those disciplines. The studio’s work for Marriott Traveler, StoryBooked, follows artists finding inspiration through travel. Framestore helped shape season two’s colour and effects. A hotel brand gets a film worth watching, rather than another tour of a pleasant lobby.

That distinction matters. A production company can deliver an excellent film while leaving the commercial result to somebody else. NBTV began building a route from the film to the transaction. In 2018, according to Buzzell’s later account, it separated the channels venture from the content business. The studio could make the story; the platform could distribute it and handle the shopping. Those are different jobs, with different demands on money and attention.

Start with a bottle, not the whole department store

Spirits Network’s public launch in August 2019 paired original programming with expert-selected bottles and delivery. Curators included Flavien Desoblin, known for New York’s Brandy Library, and bourbon specialist Fred Minnick. Diageo was among the brands involved in storytelling. A bottle has unusually good television credentials: a place, a maker, a process, and something to argue about over dinner.

This was a specialist shop with a production company attached. An enthusiast could learn about a distiller or a cocktail and purchase something relevant. The brand gained room to explain itself. Both sides had a reason to be there before checkout entered the picture. NBTV’s proposition sits between a conventional entertainment service and television retailers such as QVC and HSN, with products woven into the programme.

“One key to our approach is to be a specialist instead of a generalist.”Nick Buzzell, Crunchbase News, 2021

The money was substantial enough to make this more than an experiment in adding buttons. In April 2021, Crunchbase News reported a $10 million Series A and $15 million raised cumulatively for the channels division. Backers included Branded Strategic Hospitality, Mark Bezos, David Nichols and John Esposito. The proposed uses included more series and geographic expansion. Financing tells us how much investors supplied; it does not tell us the cost of building the product.

The next channel was already in the audience

Golf Nation’s origin offers the most portable lesson here. NBTV asked about the people watching Spirits Network and found considerable interest in golf. Later company accounts put the overlap above 60%. Golf therefore offered an adjacent audience, rather than a completely new constituency to recruit. Former PGA of America president Suzy Whaley became the channel’s president; a preview arrived in December 2022.

The opening lineup included hidden-camera comedy with David Feherty, trips to unusual courses and product-focused programming. Golf Nation chose the life around golf: friends, food, travel and equipment. A tournament provides a score. This channel provides occasions to imagine your own next round, which is a rather convenient setting for selling something you might take along.

Partnerships made that lifestyle concrete. Three Courses, with Club Wyndham, combined places to stay, play, eat and drink. VIZIO distribution subsequently put the channel into a broader television environment. That solves a separate problem from checkout: people must first encounter the programme. A position in a television guide is an invitation to watch, not proof that anyone bought.

The pantry is a perfectly respectable shop

Tom Colicchio’s The Pantry makes NBTV’s idea easy to understand without a technology presentation. Chefs cook and talk; the featured products become things viewers can shop. Season two includes Rocco DiSpirito, Gail Simmons and Sarah Jessica Parker. Spirits Network’s store also lists Colicchio sauces. Entertainment, expertise and merchandise share the same countertop.

For a brand, NBTV can supply creative development and production as well as a distribution and commerce environment. For a viewer, it offers discovery with a practical next step. Its expertise spans filmmaking, category curation, software and partnerships. Each matters: beautiful footage cannot rescue an irrelevant product, and a frictionless purchase button cannot make an uninteresting show worth watching.

Now sell the door as well

By 2025, Buzzell was describing Buy Bar licensing to other streaming networks and television manufacturers in a DEGQ interview. The business now encompasses production, brand integrations, commerce, advertising through free streaming distribution, and technology licensing. Owning every programme becomes less essential if another network can use the checkout.

The newer Klyq platform broadens the storefront. A September 2026 newsletter from investor Branded reports a nationwide launch and Samsung rollout, with travel expansion planned. These are an investor’s account of distribution and plans, not measured shopping results. The strategic direction is clear enough: take the specialist-channel machinery into more categories and more living rooms.

Copy the sequence with care. Find a specific audience, learn what else it wants, demonstrate a useful product, and shorten the purchase journey. The economics still need to cover content, customer acquisition and fulfillment. Alcohol delivery also depends on eligibility and location. NBTV’s most persuasive idea is modest: when entertainment creates a useful impulse, give it somewhere convenient to go.