The Billionaire Shell Game: How Cable Baron John Malone and Assorted Corporate Titans Invented a Future Nobody Wanted

In 1992, John Malone, chairman of cable television giant TCI, seized the public's attention by proclaiming that the information superhighway would deliver 500 channels to TV viewers across America. Harper's contributing editor Davis (Bad Money) devotes this brisk and absorbing book to proving why the promise of 500 channels and other technological wonders was no more than mere hype, designed to fool consumers, the financial community, the media and government that the latest invention by a particular media company was the next great invention--even if no one wanted to pay for the services it delivered. Davis details such high-profile new media failures as Warner's Qube interactive television service, launched in 1977, which burned through millions of dollars before it was shut down, and Time Warner's interactive television experiment in Orlando, which cost that company millions of dollars before being suspended in September 1997. Davis's main focus is on Malone and his antics as president of TCI, which eventually culminated in one of the largest failed mergers of all time--Bell Atlantic's attempted $34-billion purchase of the cable company. But Davis also manages to cover the machinations of numerous other bigwigs, including Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin, whom he thinks is not capable of leading that media company; MIT Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, whom he describes as an ""arrogant crackpot""; and Ted Turner and Viacom's Sumner Redstone, both of whom he views in a somewhat more favorable light. Sharply observant, mordantly funny, at times outright sarcastic, Davis delivers a slashing study of the telecommunications industry that questions the credo of those media visionaries who proclaim that ""any digital idea was probably a good idea."" (Oct.)