Perhaps more than any other studio executive in recent history, Barry Diller has influenced the viewing habits of both big and small screen audiences. With creativity and insight, he drastically altered the landscape of television programming with groundbreaking, critically acclaimed concepts such as the movie-of-the-week and the miniseries - the first of which was the landmark premiere of Alex Haley's Roots.

Always on the cutting edge, Diller also introduced such offbeat - and controversial - shows as The Simpsons and Married With...Children. He has also exerted enormous influence over the motion picture industry, revolutionizing the process by which studios acquire scripts, and greenlighting a string of megahits, including Raiders of the Lost Ark, 48 Hours, and Terms of Endearment.

The Barry Diller Story reveals how this media giant climbed from the mailroom of the William Morris Agency to top positions at Paramount Pictures, 20th Century fox, and QVC. With exacting detail, Mair deftly weaves tales of Diller's impressive accomplishments, from his rescue of Paramount Pictures to his historic launching of a fourth network, Fox TV.

Here, too, are sobering descriptions of hard-fought failures, among them Diller's abortive attempt at a leveraged buyout of Paramount, and his bid for a CBS-QVC merger.