Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way

by Ken Auletta

What happened to network television in the 1980s? How did CBS, NBC, and ABC lose a third of their audience and more than half of their annual profits?Ken Auletta, author of Greed and Glory on Wall Street, tells the gripping story of the decline of the networks in this epically scaled work of journalism. He chronicles the takeovers and executive coups that turned ABC and NBC into assets of two mega-corporations and CBS into the fiefdom of one man, Larry Tisch, whose obsession with the bottom line could be both bracing and appalling.Auletta takes us inside the CBS newsroom on the night that Dan Rather went off-camera for six deadly minutes; into the screening rooms where NBC programming wunderkind Brandon Tartikoff watched two of his brightest prospects for new series thud disastrously to earth; and into the boardrooms where the three networks were trying to decide whether television is a public trust or a cash cow.Rich in anecdote and gossip, scalpel-sharp in its perceptions, Three Blind Mice chronicles a revolution in American business and popular culture, one that is changing the world on both sides of the television screen.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, History, Tv, Journalism, Economics

656 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Ken Auletta has written Annals of Communications columns and profiles for The New Yorker magazine since 1992. He is the author of eleven books, including five national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed And Glory On Wall Street: The Fall of The House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled, The End of the World As We Know It, which was published in November of 2009.

Auletta has won numerous journalism honors. He has been chosen a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and one of the 20th Century's top 100 business journalists by a distinguished national panel of peers.

For two decades Auletta has been a national judge of the Livingston Awards for journalists under thirty-five. He has been a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival. He was a member of the Columbia Journalism School Task Force assembled by incoming college President Lee Bollinger to help reshape the curriculum. He has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror and a Trustee of the Nightingale-Bamford School. He was twice a Trustee of PEN, the international writers organization. He is a member of the New York Public Library's Emergency Committee for the Research Libraries, of the Author's Guild, PEN, and of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Auletta grew up on Coney Island in Brooklyn, where he attended public schools. He graduated with a B.S. from the State University College at Oswego, N.Y., and received an M.A. in political science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Reviews

[Astraia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book that goes through the history of the networks and how those early choices lay the ground work for each network's identity. Though written over a decade ago- it is still relevant.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems so long ago that Rupert Murdoch challenged the Big Three Networks with the introduction of the Fox Network, yet Auletta's coverage aging network television at the dawn of mass cable consumption is brilliant.

[Michael Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in college...way before the a serious 4th network competitor, before cable became a viable challenger and long before the Internet and social media have upended the entire media world. It was most interesting, continues to have valid points and wish I still owned my copy.

[Hank Stuever · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not riveting, but definitely prescient.

[Maurice]

too much! stopped after 216 out of 577 pages. all 3 networks were by then in the hands of other corporations. i had experienced GE's leadership at NBC and was curious to know more...but too revolted to continue reading.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favorites. I read this a few years into my TV career before working for one of the networks. It was interesting to read about all the background and then hear some of the stories from colleagues who lived through it and had their own insights.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a good book about business; it's not a good book about the television business.

[Marianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you can see, it took me quite a while to get through this but at least I did. Interesting in places, tedious in others, it was a vivid, if lengthy, picture of the networks.