The Amazing Adventures of Scratchy Les, Purple Steve, and Zippy the Golden Boy

Broadcasting & Cable previews some of NY Times reporter Bill Carter's behind-the-scenes book on the last five years in the TV business, Desperate Networks, which we're hoping will bear the somewhat unwieldy subtitle The Amazing Adventures of Scratchy Les, Purple Steve, and Zippy the Golden Boy:

Carter also details McPherson's reputation for poor anger management, quoting an agent who nicknamed him "purple Steve," because "when he got angry, he would get so red in the face. And there were times when he would get so sullen he would literally mumble."

Zucker is characterized as failing upward while NBC's prime time schedule unraveled. Agents complain that he was inattentive during meetings, focusing more on the TV sets in his office than on the major writers pitching him their series.

"He was taking credit for what others have done," says former NBC programming strategist Preston Beckman (now at Fox) in the book. "You listen to him and it's like: What the fuck have you done? There was arrogance; there was haughtiness. He was dismantling what we had built at NBC and making it seem like he invented it all."

Moonves (who, we learn, privately refers to Zucker as "Zippy") is generally lauded, but he doesn't escape some frank treatment of his own temper. A CBS executive recalls a contentious staff meeting in which the CBS chief literally drew blood—his own. While nervously scratching his own cheek, "Moonves got so worked up, and the scratching got so fevered, that blood began dripping down his face onto his shirt."

Co-workers and professional competitors alike shouldn't mistake Moonves' obsessive scratching as a sign of weakness. The gleamingly betoothed CBS despot's disturbing flesh-rending is just a tool in his competitive arsenal; if the unexpected self-lacerations aren't enough to scare his adversaries into submission, Moonves smears the blood across his face like crude war paint, signalling his intentions to wage battle in the boardroom. And should that extreme tactic fails to intimidate, he escalates the alpha-male displays to slowly unbuttoning his shirt and shaving the words "Surrender now or die!" into his thicket of chest hair, a terrifying manscaping ritual that few have witnessed and even fewer have survived.

• Carter Dishes on "Zippy," "Purple Steve" [Broadcasting and Cable]

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