Tom Freston on Sumner Redstone, David Ellison, MTV’s Heyday

The former MTV boss Tom Freston had hoped to meet at one of his old haunts, someplace that might evoke the good old days of the music network he co-founded in 1981. But most of those places are gone: the Greek luncheonette he and his colleagues used to frequent, the Mexican joint where the bartender sold cocaine, even the old MTV offices at 1775 Broadway, an entire floor of which went up in flames in 1988 when an employee working overnight tossed a lit cigarette into a garbage can. “I can’t remember any other place that’s still standing,” Freston says while thumbing a sugar packet at the Cosmic Diner in the Theater District, where we meet for breakfast.

Now 79, Freston presents me with a manila envelope, inside of which is a copy of his new memoir, Unplugged , a frisky account of hi