The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway - Hardcover

Auletta, Ken

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679457380 ISBN 13: 9780679457381

Publisher: Random House, 1997

Synopsis

A struggle is taking place--not just among corporate titans, but among entire industries. At stake is control of the world's fastest-growing industry: communications. The contestants are Hollywood studios, television networks, and cable, telephone, computer, publishing, and consumer-electronics companies. All are vying to collect a toll on the information superhighway. And as they jockey for control, they tread on volatile ground, as one fixation after another (cable, interactive TV) is dumped in favor of the next (satellite, the Internet).

There is no better account of this turmoil than the one provided here by Ken Auletta, bestselling author of Three Blind Mice ("the best book ever written on network television"*) and Greed and Glory on Wall Street, who for five years has brilliantly tracked the communications industry for The New Yorker. Auletta's access to the principal players is unparalleled (six days with Rupert Murdoch, summit meetings with John Malone), and his grasp of the issues--from boardroom politics to regulatory and technological pressures--is unmatched by any other journalist.

In this riveting collection of his best pieces Auletta takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes tour of such companies as Disney, Viacom, Microsoft, Time Warner, and Telecommunications, Inc., and keenly chronicles the vanities and visions of the new Highwaymen--Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner, Michael Eisner, Sumner Redstone, Bill Gates, and more. Just as Three Blind Mice was heralded as "the new bible of the broadcasting business,"  The Highwaymen will be received as an indispensable guide to the future of this explosive new world.

* Frank Stanton, former president of CBS

About this title

Review:

Few industries can grab the world's attention these days--and hold the promise of totally reshaping its future--like communications. Bestselling author Ken Auletta profiles many of the field's leading lights in great depth in The New Yorker, and 17 of his most compelling essays since 1992 have been collected in a book that offers close-up details as well as long-range perspectives on movers and shakers such as Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and Ted Turner. Available in paperback, The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway has been extensively revised and expanded since its original publication. --Howard Rothman

From the Publisher:

PRAISE FOR Three Blind Mice:

"Sweeping in its scope and definitive in its detail, Three Blind Mice will tower over all other accounts as the new bible of the broadcasting business."
-- Chicago Sun Times

"The book's fascination and fun lie in the detail -- Mr. Auletta's extraordinary access to the principle players, his eye for color, ear for anecdote and reporter's instinct for conflict."
-- The Wall Street Journal

"A tour-de-force of reporting"
-- Business Week

"Three Blind Mice may be the most thorough probe ever into how the TV industry works."
-- Newsweek

"Ken Auletta tells it all about the television networks. Behind the scenes, on the record, as never before."
-- Ben Bradlee, The Washington Post

Early Reviews for The Highwaymen:

"In his new book, Auletta collects 16 of his New Yorker articles published since 1993, adding afterwards and updates where necessary. (Most of the piece on William Bennett's battle with Time Warner over rap music, for example, did not appear in the original version.) The theme binding the pieces is the new booms in the electronic communications business, and in particular the figures -- usually colorful -- who have dominated, however fleetingly, its rapid growth.

Included are Ted Turner of CNN, John Malone of TCI, Rupert Murdoch (who came to regret taping "fifteen or so hours" of interviews with Auletta and giving him almost complete access for a week -- more exposure, Auletta notes, than Murdoch had ever allowed before), Herbert Allen, master arranger of mega-mergers, and Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg together (briefly) at Disney. There's also a corporate history of Viacom, a look at the move into show business by the new generation at Seagram's, and a discussion of the "synergistic" superhighway's distrust -- and fear -- of traditional journalism, the craft Auletta practices so skillfully. For those who haven't kept abreast of what's been happening in the big-bucks communications world, here's an ideal way to catch up."
-- Publisher's Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679457380
• ISBN 13: 9780679457381
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 346