Infomercials, unique to USA?

people from abroad put your hands in the air
say ye ahhh
say ho oooooo
Are infomercials a uniquely UnitedStates thing or do these attrocites also occur in other countries?
scorchengine says 'herballife' had the 1st infomerc back in 1984

All I know is when I was in Japan watching TV at like 3 in the morning, they were advertising a best of the 90's CD, just like in the U.S. (Japanese music, though).

It was with this girl, and a dude with a frog hand-puppet.