The collapse of the TV and online shopping service Ideal World TV was the final scene for an iconic company that has been a part of life in Peterborough for 23 years.
Based in Newark Road, Fengate, where it once employed 615 people, the company can actually trace its origins back to the 1980s when it was a mail order catalogue business founded by Paul Wright and Val Kaye.
It first appeared on TV screens as Ideal World in April 2000.
In the same year, the business made headlines with a deal with internet retailer bigsave.com that allowed it to broadcast live for 16 hours a day with staff providing an around the clock delivery service,
It saw the staff levels triple to 160 people.
Ideal also listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) raising £7.5 million to invest in the business.
But disaster struck in March the following year when fire swept through the warehouse and studios destroying the premises.
TV presenters and staff rallied round and working in cramped conditions in makeshift studios and offices rapidly set up in mobile units brought to the site ensured the business was back on air in three weeks.
Six years later, the company was honoured to be asked to play a key role in the BBC’s hit reality show The Apprentice.
Contestants spent time at the studios learning how to sell their products on TV as they battled it out to win the show’s top prize.
The business also opened its first outlet shop in the Rivergate Shopping Centre in Peterborough.
There were numerous highlights over the years.
Kathy Hilton, mother of the American media personality Paris Hilton, arrived at the Peterborough studios to launch her new cosmetics range.
And Donna Presley, first cousin to Elvis Presley, ‘the King of Rock and Roll’ was a guest at Ideal World to promote her new book about Elvis on the shopping channel.
April 2003 saw the creation of Ideal World's first sister channel Create and Craft and a year later Ideal began broadcasting on Freeview.
In 2011 there was the first of what were to be a number of changes of ownership.
Ideal was delisted from the AIM stock market following its acquisition by Village Ventures' investment fund, Inflexion Private Equity. Four years later the business was sold to The Blackstone Group and was then acquired by the Aurelius Group in July 2018.
Jamie Martin was appointed as chief executive by Aurelius in December 2018 and said new investment would allow the business to become one of the top five largest market places in the UK which would secure its future.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a challenge for the company but sales rose and Ideal World and Create and Craft began broadcasting on ITV.
But in 2022, the business was broken up by Aurelius with Ideal World sold to entrepreneur Hamish Morjaria.
A year later, Ideal was placed in administration and its 275 jobs axed.
Joint administrator Michael Lennon blamed changing consumer spending habits and a fall in viewers and customers.
He said “Overall trading was not strong enough for the business to continue in its present format."
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Fire at the premises of Ideal World in Peterborough in 2001 Photo: nw