Brandon Tartikoff was NBC’s entertainment president from 1980 to 1991. This is a book review of his memoir The Last Great Ride, which was published in 1992.

During the 1980 and early 1990s, NBC was “Must See TV”.  It was also a time, as Brandon Tartikoff points out in his memoir, where a “27 share was the dividing line between renewal and cancellation.” Nowadays, the highest rated show on television, American Idol, does not even get close to a 27 share. American Idol only gets a 14 share due to the increasing number of niche audience, the fact that most homes have more than one television, and everyone can watch almost anything whenever and wherever they want. Brandon Tartikoff knew this in 1992, which was the year his book The Last Great Ride was published and VCRs were the only commonly found television-recording devices.

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