Tom Freston, Unplugged

"a frisky account of his nearly two decades at the helm of MTV that doubles as a sort of handbook for dealing with hustlers, rock stars, and megalomaniacs. Among those in the last category Freston dealt with personally was Sumner Redstone, the intransigent late media magnate, whose $3.4 billion takeover of Viacom in 1987 allowed Freston to grow MTV from a scrappy DIY upstart to a world-beating, generation-defining institution."

"In one of Unplugged 's many digressions, he enlists Freston to take him on a walkabout through Bangkok's most sordid sex clubs. "The rest of the room had pretty much gone back to their conversations, as if they couldn't care less about the acrobats fucking on a running motorcycle just over their heads," writes Freston. "But Sumner could not take his eyes off the fornicators.""

"But most of those places are gone: the Greek luncheonette he and his colleagues used to frequent, the Mexican joint where the bartender sold cocaine, even the old MTV offices at 1775 Broadway, an entire floor of which went up in flames in 1988 when an employee working overnight tossed a lit cigarette into a garbage can. "I can't remember any other place that's still standing," Freston says while thumbing a sugar packet at the Cosmic Diner."

Tom Freston led MTV from its 1981 founding into a global, generation-defining network, transforming a scrappy DIY upstart into a dominant cultural force. Many original New York haunts associated with that era no longer exist; an MTV floor at 1775 Broadway burned in 1988 after an overnight employee tossed a lit cigarette into a garbage can. Sumner Redstone's $3.4 billion Viacom takeover in 1987 enabled major expansion; Redstone later promoted and then removed Freston as CEO. Redstone is depicted as mercurial, stock-market-obsessed, and litigious, and is compared to Trump. Anecdotes include Bangkok sex-club walkabouts and guidance on managing hustlers, rock stars, and megalomaniacs.

Read at Vulture