Word: dillers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Home shopping? Is this Barry Diller, the manic madman who has fascinated and frightened Hollywood for more than two decades? The charismatic celebrity addicted to power and partying with people who appear boldfaced in Women's Wear Daily social columns? And why is he spending three days a week in a sprawling office park in the exurbs of Philadelphia, surrounded by wildlife photos and a bank of nine video screens? "Home shopping is the very beginning of a whole new world," he says, as he bounds around his second-floor office while assistants teach him about things like product markups...
...Barry Diller inspecting hubcaps: it's a sight strange enough to cause a pileup of rubberneckers on the Santa Monica Freeway. Last February he resigned from one of Hollywood's most powerful posts -- chairman of 20th Century Fox and mastermind of the Fox network -- because he wanted to run his own company rather than continue as a hired hand in Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Hollywood assumed he would return as the head of another studio or perhaps a network, and he did have some exploratory discussions about buying NBC. But when he announced his new venture in early December...
...spin doctors could have been cruel: one of Hollywood's biggest, baddest power brokers resurfaces as head of a rinky-dink cable outfit that hawks kitchen knives and costume jewelry. Yet the move was hailed as a stroke of visionary genius. QVC, Diller announced, would be the basis for a multimedia company poised to exploit all the new technology soon to transform TV: fiber optics and digital compression, which will multiply the number of channels available, and two-way capability, which will allow viewers to interact with the TV set. Home shopping, Diller promises, is just the first...
...industry gurus, it made sense: Diller, with his programming expertise, joining forces with some of cable's leading techies, most notably John Malone, head of Tele-Communications, Inc., the country's largest cable operator. In one swoop, television's fuzzy dreams of an interactive future had acquired both immediacy and show-biz cachet. "I'm only surprised at how stupid the rest of us were not to see it," says Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Jokes CBS president Howard Stringer: "Already he's scared the Sears catalog out of business...
...Diller's first task is to redesign the on-air look and schedule of QVC, which is currently seen in 45 million homes. (A second QVC-owned service, the Fashion Channel, is seen in 10.5 million.) "If you're looking for sweaters," he says, "you need to be able to find sweaters." He wants to upgrade the product line -- more high-end electronics, less cubic zirconium -- and eventually to introduce self-contained programs. He has been contacted by everyone from top designers like Donna Karan and Calvin Klein to Roseanne Barr (who wants to market a line of large-size...