Cutthroat: High Stakes & Killer Moves on the Electronic Frontier Review

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(More customer reviews)Surprisingly, this is not a flatly-written text book about the battles that brewed and continue to brew between the cable and satellite industries. Instead, Keating book injects some rakish zip and intrigue that makes it extremely fun to read. Expect a lot of insightful background on EchoStar chief executive Charlie Ergen, but not much on Dr. John Malone. After reading, it's clear who of the two main characters (Ergen and Malone) spent quality time with Keating for his book. The book also puts the DBS companies like EchoStar and DirecTV in a positive, swashbuckling light, while the "cable gang" (a term Keating uses ad nauseum) comes out looking like a bunch of thugs, bording on crookery -- a rather lopsided view.
"Cutthroat" deals aside, Keating also supplies terrific accounts regarding the births of the cable and satellite industries. A good read all around. If you haven't paid much attention to the DBS and cable industries, you will after reading this book. In addition to his book, I used to read Keating's telcom news coverage in the Denver Post. He's off that particular beat now (perhaps because there could be a conflict of interest in covering DBS and cable after he wrote the book), but Denver Post readers are the ones who are suffering. The person who handles the telecom beat these days does a satisfactory job, but needs to get a better understanding of each industry before the new reporter's coverage will ever rival Keating's.

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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.

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