Cutthroat: High Stakes & Killer Moves on the Electronic Frontier

Cutthroat: High Stakes & Killer Moves on the Electronic Frontier by Keating, Stephen. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781555662486.

A lively, fast-paced, unauthorized account of power brokers and sky-high deals, "Cutthroat" is the one book you must read to understand the players, the tactics, and the future in the brutal telecommunications market battle between satellite TV and cable. In 1997, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. joined forces with EchoStar, Charlie Ergen’s upstart company, to create a satellite-TV powerhouse—nicknamed Deathstar. The cable industry knew its lucrative monopoly was threatened, and with TCI’s John Malone in the forefront, cable fought back and held off the assault. How this deal lit up the sky before crashing down to earth exposes the outsized personalities, the high-stakes deal-making, the shifting alliances, and the ruthless politicking that surround the pursuit of megabucks in telecommunications today.