Publications

March 2011
Teaching Note

Hollywood in India: Protecting Intellectual Property (A) and (B) (TN)

By: Lakshmi Iyer

Teaching Note for 711017 and 711018. View Details

Keywords: Markets; Strategy; Intellectual Property; Crime and Corruption; Film Entertainment; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; India

Web

The Business of Entertainment, Media, and Sports - Course Catalog

How can entertainment businesses best approach the management and marketing of creative talent? In particular, how should companies invest in and capture value from "superstars" and the teams to which they... View Details

01 Jun 2014
News

Screen Saver

Entertainment Group and ahead of Cinemark Theatres), AMC has 345 theaters and nearly 5,000 screens across the United States, with about 20,000 employees hosting some 200 million moviegoers each year. (AMC has the largest View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Arts, Entertainment

October 2003 (Revised February 2004)
Case

Strategic Inflection: TiVo in 2003 (A)

By: David B. Yoffie, Pai-Ling Yin and Christina L. Darwall

Mike Ramsey, TiVo's CEO, must decide on which direction to build the company. Facing an onslaught of new competitors, a huge opportunity in the cable industry, and the possibility of becoming the new "user interface" for TV entertainment, Ramsey must balance the... View Details

Keywords: Television Entertainment; Profit; Product Positioning; Standards; Opportunities; Commercialization; Competition; Technology Adoption; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

March 2025
Case

YouTube: Bidding for NFL Sunday Ticket

By: Anita Elberse and Crystal Yao

In December 2022, Erin Teague, a senior director and the global head of sports, movies and shows at YouTube, technology giant Alphabet Inc.’s video- sharing platform, received the news that Sundar Pichai, the chief executive officer of Alphabet and its subsidiary... View Details

Keywords: General Management; Entertainment; Media; Sports; Marketing; Management; Business Strategy; Bids and Bidding; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Profile

Claire Freidman

Why was earning your MBA at HBS important to you? Prior to business school, I spent five years working in finance. My clients were entertainment companies and I knew I wanted to switch careers and work on the operations or strategic side... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment / Media; Entertainment / Media; Entertainment / Media

May 2008 (Revised September 2009)
Case

Radiohead: Music at Your Own Price (A)

By: Anita Elberse and Jason Bergsman

In October 2007, the British band Radiohead caused a stir when it announced it would allow customers to decide how much to pay for its new album, released exclusively as a digital download and available only from the band's own website. The pricing plan represented a... View Details

Keywords: Music Entertainment; Price; Marketing Strategy; Distribution; Problems and Challenges; Online Technology; Music Industry

May 2017 (Revised November 2019)
Case

The Dubai International Film Festival

By: Rohit Deshpandé and Alpana Thapar

This case follows the conception and emergence of the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF). In an already crowded and highly competitive industry, Abdulhamid Juma was attempting to define and establish a unique brand positioning for DIFF. Committed to its vision,... View Details

Keywords: Brand Positioning; Underdog Brand Building; Business Models; Non-profit; Managing Multiple Stakeholders; Film Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Decision Making; Growth and Development Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

January 2011
Supplement

BBC America Showreel, Fall 2007

By: John A. Quelch

HD-TV ad clips of Fall 2007 television show line up from BBC America. View Details

Keywords: Global Strategy; Television Entertainment; Brands and Branding; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United Kingdom; United States

March 2021
Supplement

Sky Deutschland - Bidding for Sports Rights (B)

By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Sascha L. Schmidt and Sebastian Koppers

Carsten Schmidt, CEO of Sky Deutschland, needs to prepare for the auction of German soccer rights. Much was at stake. Not only was soccer the most widely watched sport in Germany, the company had long advertised that only Sky showed “every game, every goal.” In... View Details

Keywords: Sports; Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Intellectual Property; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Sports Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; Germany

February 2007
Case

Update: The Music Industry in 2006

By: John R. Wells and Elizabeth Raabe

The global recorded music industry was undergoing a major transition in 2006. Sales had been declining for a decade, and consumers were buying music in new formats and through different distribution channels. CD sales still accounted for the majority of revenues, but... View Details

Keywords: History; Arts; Music Entertainment; Intellectual Property; Market Timing; Performance Evaluation; Trends; Music Industry

10 Mar 2021
News

Elevator Pitch: Game Time

Video Embed Animation by Drue Wagner and Troubadour Image + Sound Concept: Tilt Five is an entertainment system that uses augmented reality (AR) glasses, a game board, and a wand controller to engage players in tabletop and video games in... View Details

Keywords: AI; virtual reality; gaming; technology; entrepreneurship; startups; Arts, Entertainment; Arts, Entertainment

12 Dec 2016
HBS Case

Business Lessons from Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson

his wallet and saw he only had seven dollars left. That stuck with him, and it has fueled him ever since. “The power in the entertainment industry is shifting to the superstars, and the smartest among those stars are finding ways to... View Details

Keywords: Re: Anita Elberse; Entertainment & Recreation; Entertainment & Recreation

Profile

Pam Wildeman

career thus far? The diversity of experiences I’ve had. I never would have anticipated that working in Marketing would also give me such rich experiences in Finance, Manufacturing, Research & Development, Operations, Sales, and (my... View Details

Keywords: Entertainment / Media

21 Jun 2004
Research & Ideas

Music Downloads: Pirates—or Customers?

industry consider peer-to-peer services as marketing tools rather than the enemy? Should online pricing be different from in-store pricing? What happens when broadband makes it as easy to illegally download an entire CD as an individual... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Entertainment & Recreation; Entertainment & Recreation

September 2017 (Revised June 2019)
Case

The ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament

By: Anita Elberse and Saskia Van Rheenen

Should the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament gamble most of its player budget on superstar player Rafael Nadal, even after the event’s previous two editions saw Nadal and Roger Federer pull out at the last moment due to injury, leaving the tournament without any... View Details

Keywords: Superstar; Talent; General Management; Marketing; Sports; Media; Entertainment; Talent and Talent Management; Negotiation; Strategy; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

02 Sep 2016
Op-Ed

The Twitter Election

Bush, who spent $100 million on traditional marketing before dropping out. Can the same strategy succeed in the general election campaign?Probably not, for three reasons. First, Trump needs around 60 million votes to win, six times more... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch and Thales Teixeira

April 2013
Teaching Note

Bluefin Labs: The Acquisition by Twitter

By: John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld

What is the value of Bluefin Labs's social listening data to Twitter? Acquired by Twitter in 2013, Bluefin had built a system that gathered millions of online comments in an effort to develop new metrics for TV programs and brand advertising. With data from Twitter and... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Use and Leverage; Knowledge Acquisition; Marketing; Television Entertainment; Mobile Technology