Clash of the Titans - Richard Hack

I have always enjoyed business books. Maybe it’s because I have done an MBA. (I know that sounds snobbish, but when you study business management, learning how, say, a Microsoft or a Google become the mammoth that it is, is actually quite thrilling. My love for business books is a different topic altogether) But all business books that I had read so far were about businesses that I more or less understood. Or if not understood, at least I could grasp. Say technology, or Consumer Goods, or Retail. It’s about making something, and selling it.

And when I started on with Clash of the Titans, I was quite enthused about expanding my horizons and reading about a new business, namely media. The book is about the clash of the two titans in the media world, Rupert Murdoch, and Ted Turner. Both incredible business men who have touched my lives quite personally in their own ways. Murdoch through his Times of India, and Ted Turner through Cartoon Network. This is not to say that Star Sports or Star Movies or HBO or their other ventures haven’t been a part of my life, but their influence was certainly considerably lesser.

Richard Hack tries to give the book as fictional a feel as possible. Through his non-sequential narration of starting with an episode midway in the chronology, then going back to the beginning to come back to the start of the book again. That’s a ploy done to death, but it still holds its charm. And then there is (over-)dramatization of several scenes, the details which can not possibly be confirmed with regards to their accuracy. And while the purpose of it to not render the book boring is accomplished, the author does go overboard by ending every chapter with “… and the tides had turned for the two giants to collide in a feisty storm” or lines to that effect.

As such Clash of The Titans is as much a business book as it is a compressed biography of Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner, juxtaposed brilliantly. There the book is something unique, and reads almost like a movie screen play. Both Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch have led incredible lives and have built incredible companies. The book traces the life of both these protagonists in the right amount of detail required in the context of the book.

The business side of it is actually not that easy to follow. Or maybe it was because I don’t really understand the business of media. And how exactly Murdoch and Turner become business men of their stature is not very clear. As given in the book: Murdoch buys newspapers after newspapers (as in the publishing companies and not stacks of newspapers) and ensures they become profitable and Turner has TBS and then starts CNN which is a hit. I am oversimplifying what’s there in the book of course, but the book itself oversimplifies their rise to stardom as well. There’s this whole thing of network versus cable versus dish antenna TV which I absolutely did not get. (Time for some Googling) But then the book, at 400 pages, probably did not have enough space to dwell into more details.

The two things that absolutely do stand out for me though are that one, Both Murdoch and Turner have an unending zest for life and want to keep setting goals and achieving them. The book portrays the passion that the two men have, extremely well. Secondly, as constant a character as Murdoch has been through his life, Turner has taken a somersault and turned himself inside out. Murdoch’s priorities have been fairly uniform through his life. Turner’s have changed drastically. Murdoch was always a business man through out his life. Turner was a sailor, a Casanova, an orator, a philanthropist, and a businessman, each in varying amounts in different phases of his life.

The book does an exceptional job of providing glimpses into the lives and businesses of Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, a commendable job when writing about either would have constituted quite a tome itself. That itself makes this book a highly recommended read.