Art Bell was the creator of the cable channel Comedy Central.
Ever since he was a little kid he was into comedy and he could not believe that there was not a 24-hour comedy channel.
There was a 24-hour music channel and 24-hour news channel, but no comedy.
Art knew his comedy. As a small kid, he watched and study other comedians until he could memorize the lines. Also, he was a small kid, he used comedy to defuse tension at school and not to get beat up.
He started working on TV as a business analyst, spending his time creating spreadsheets and figuring out how a TV station could make more money or spend less money.
At one time, he proposed the idea of a 24-hour TV channel to one of his supervisors but he was told all the reasons why it was a horrible idea. A few months he proposed the same idea to his boss’s boss. The second time, the idea got some traction and it was given the green light.
The beginning was full of difficulties. To make things worse, a competing TV chain also started a 24-hour comedy channel a few month after.
As the competition started to heat up and both channels were losing money, they decided to merge. After the merge, a new level of responsibilities and chain of command emerged.
Art Bell had many successes. His creativity brought many innovations to comedy and he discovered talent such a Jon Stewart and Bill Maher.
“I learned that when you don’t get it right the first time, you go back and do it again. You figure out what’s working, and you do it again,” Art Bell says. “It’s a process, and you have to consider a launch a constant work in progress.”
Eventually, Art Bell was fired because his fingerprints were all over the channel and the new management wanted to have a bigger sense of ownership. It stung, though as one chairman of a large media company told him later, “If you don’t get fired now and then, you probably aren’t having an impact.”
Overall, I give this book 4.5 start ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2
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