Media & Entertainment: Strategy Consulting Projects
Update: 6.14.15
Course number: B8213 section 1
Schedule: T and Thur B-term, 2:45 PM to 4:45 PM
Room: Uris 331
Adjunct Associate Professor Ava Seave
Phone: 212 222 0025 (off campus office)
Office: Uris 315 (Greenwald’s office)
Office hours: By appointment
Email: as2486@columbia.edu
General Course Description
Highly encouraged: One media course and/or one strategy course and/or professional experience at a
media company.
In “Media & Entertainment: Strategy Consulting Projects,” the concepts and theories introduced in
previous media and strategy courses will be applied in a practical way to problems brought to the class as
projects from real companies and their managers.
The ultimate goal of this class is for students to have team experience in helping companies recognize
and solve strategic media problems.
Among the techniques the students will work on

Industry mapping

SCP: Structure/Conduct/Performance analysis

Market sizing

Defining the goals of a project

Defining and understanding scope

Value propositions and Value curves


Mapping Business Systems
Introduction to Business Canvas and Minimal viable product
The five- week course will introduce techniques to perform strategy consulting for media companies and
teach students how to apply these techniques to real projects from real companies. In the sixth week, the
teams will present their findings to the sponsoring companies.
To master these skills, each week students will be given specific tools to work through each concept and
will to apply these concepts in several ways:

to case histories of well-known companies and industries


to a case about an evolving media SaaS company
to the company project they have been assigned to
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The class is limited to 24 students. There will be four teams of six members each. Team work, and active
participation in each and every class will be required. Check in meetings (physical or by phone) with
sponsor companies are required each week. Collaboration is expected and encouraged throughout the
course.
The textbook for this class is: Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with the World’s Leading Media
Companies (Knee, Greenwald, Seave; Penguin 2009.) The class will be assigned several chapters to
read each week, through Chapter 11. There may be additional articles assigned for each class.
The four companies supplying projects this year are confirmed:
 DaSilva + Phillips – an investment bank that specializes in media
 LifePost -- a start-up social media platform, founded by a serial entrepreneur
 Plum Alley – an early stage “funding solutions” company
 Forbes Media – the global media, branding and technology company that is best known for its
flagship physical and digital publication Forbes.
Before the class begins
 Pre class reading: Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 of The Curse of the Mogul: What’s Wrong with
the World’s Leading Media Companies (Knee, Greenwald, Seave; Penguin 2009.)
 Read the case Contently: Evolution of a Media Start-up
Classroom expectations
 Attendance at the first and second class is mandatory. Attendance to all classes is strongly
encouraged, and is expected
 Except for the first class, each class will consist of presentation to the professor (and one other team)
of the week’s assignment, team work time and lecture/discussion of the next week’s assignment.
Starting in week 4, there will also be presentation of elements for the final deck.
Class Project
 Students will be assigned projects by the professor based as much as possible on student
preferences.
 Project assignment mechanics:
o Before class begins, I will send a detailed description of the class projects, students can
prioritize your preferences, and I will try to honor them as much as possible.
o Once assigned to a team, if a student would like to try to switch to another team, he/she
has 24 hours to convince someone on the desired team to switch. However, no one is
required to switch.
o Only contact me after the switch is made to let me know. Do not involve me in any kind
of discussion or negotiation.
 The presentation to the company will consist of a presentation deck or memo plus any back up
analysis and research that is appropriate
Grades
Grades will be based on class participation during the full class, collaboration during other groups’ weekly
presentations, weekly completion of assignments that will be presented to the class and the final
presentation (group, type A) to your company’s executives in the seventh/exam week. That deliverable for
the presentation will consist of a presentation deck plus any back up analysis and research that is
appropriate.
Class Dates
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Class 1
Class 2
Class 3
Class 4
Class 5
Class 6
Class 7
Class 8
Class 9
Class 10
Presentations
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Tuesday
Thursday
Tuesday
Thursday
Tuesday
Thursday
Tuesday
Thursday
Tuesday
Thursday
July 7
July 9
July 14
July 16
July 21
July 23
July 28
July 30
August 4
August 6
August 10 -13
Confirmed projects:
DaSilva + Phillips
desilvaphillips.com
Acquisition Strategies for Multichannel video program distributors in response to OTT or Overthe-top
About DeSilva + Phillips
DeSilva+Phillips is a leading M&A advisor to the media, marketing, education and information services
industries, advising on more than 260 transactions valued at over $9 billion.
The Project
Over-the-top content (OTT) refers to delivery of broadcast, cable and cable-like networks over the Internet
without the involvement of a MVPDs (multichannel video program distributors) such as Comcast,
Cablevision, Dish, DirectTV. HBO Now, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu and Netflix are well known
examples of over-the-top content delivery.
What acquisition strategy should Cablevision (ticker: NYSE: CVC) pursue in response to its own
disintermediation? (Dish, for instance, is offering a package of OTTs.)
The project should answer these questions:
 How does Cablevision’s acquisition strategy over the last two years relate to OTT?
 Consider the following options for Cablevision
o Should the company acquire Content companies in order to gain control of niche OTT
networks as some have done previously with niche cable networks?
o Should the company acquire OTT tech solutions in order to deliver higher quality video than
is currently available through companies like Netflix?
o Should the company acquire CRM or marketing companies in order to improve their direct
relationships with consumers as they have many more choices to walk away from them
 Which of these three options should Cablevision do first and why?
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Lifeposts
Lifeposts.com
About LifePosts
LifePosts is a new company that is enabling consumers to celebrate and commemorate the most
significant people and milestones in their lives. It will launch in beta in the Fall 2015. The company will
have a freemium business model. It is backed by a blue-chip group of angel investors from the media
industry.
As national and local newspapers lose staff and reach, fewer are telling the life stories of its readers in a
vivid and enduring way. The digital age has given us many new tools to capture a single moment… but
they are fragmented and fleeting.
Over 40 million frequent, significant milestones to share each year including deaths, births, marriages,
graduations among other. Each milestone engages many friends & family. The Lifeposts platform
enables people to capture and share beautiful, curated life milestones. Lifeposts will gives users a sense
of pride, validation, and significance when their Lifepost is published as community news in credible,
independent content sites and across their social graph.
The tools that have been designed are organized into these categories:
Create: Use simple, captivating tools such as our Collaborative photo albums, dynamic timelines, guided
Q&As and layered maps, Do-it yourself, or professional
Collaborate: Easily enlist friends and family to add memories, images and sounds.
Share: Tap social media accounts (via mobile or desktop) to make it especially fast. Publish your
milestones through social media and the LifePosts Network of local news websites, houses of worship
and alumni associations & more
Preserve: Organize and archive your memories forever in books, newspapers, and online at the Internet
Archive.
The project
LifePosts wants to formulate a specific consumer-facing marketing strategy for one or two of its major
customer target segments. Students will get an early look at the product as it is brought to market to
understand what it is and what it can do.
For the final project, students should consider:
1. What are the most appropriate paid marketing strategies?
2. What are the most cost effective channels and what is the pricing and keyword availability in
different areas?
3. Are there non-digital routes that should be considered?
4. Are there companies in adjacent fields that would be good marketing partners (e.g. The Knot for
weddings, Billiongraves.com for funerals)?
About the founder/CEO and the COO
Founder: Steven Waldman, the founder and CEO, is a journalist, entrepreneur, digital content pioneer,
and expert on the transformation of the American news media in thebroadband age. Before this venture,
he was: CEO and Founder of Beliefnet.com; Senior advisor to the Chairman of the FCC as Author of
landmark report on changing media landscape; Author of bestseller, Founding Faith; Editor and writer for
Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report
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Chief Operating Officer:Ju-Don Marshall Roberts has held senior executive positions on online news.
She was managing editor of WashingtonPost.com, Executive Editor of EveryDay Health and Executive
Editor of Beliefnet.
Investors
Angel investors include Lauren Zalaznick, former Executive Vice President of NBCUniversal; Julius
Genachowski, former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission; Jon Miller, former Chief
Digital Officer of News Corps; American Public Media, creator of Prairie Home Companion and
Marketplace; and others.
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Plum Alley
plumalley.co
About Plum Alley:
Plum Alley was founded in 2012 to create tangible ways to help women entrepreneurs succeed.
We provided e-commerce to increase sales for women business owners and inspired others by
telling the stories of over 100 extraordinary female founders. From there, Plum Alley expanded
our technology to offer women a way to raise non-equity funds through our platform. In 2015,
Plum Alley will be launching a first of its kind membership program called 1000 Strong. Our goal
is to increase the pool of available capital and the base of investors who support women
entrepreneurs.
The Project:
With 1000 Strong membership program, we are challenging the current state of financial
investing for women and also the issue that women entrepreneurs face in lack of funding. We
want to explore the most effective media outreach strategy for our new program. For this
project, students will identify all the different media outlets that we should be targeting, explore
what other financial startups are doing and come up with a recommended strategy for Plum
Alley.
The project should answer these questions:
1. What magazines, TV shows, blogs and/or online news portals have a focus on investing
that would be interested in 1000 Strong?
2. Who in the media has a voice about innovative financing products?
3. What were other financial start-ups’ media strategies? (Lending Club, Indie Dot VC)
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Forbes Media
http://www.forbes.com/newsletters/
About Forbes Media
Forbes Media is a global media, branding and technology company, with a focus on
news and information about business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship,
leadership and affluent lifestyles. The company publishes Forbes, Forbes Asia, Forbes
Europe and ForbesLife magazines as well as Forbes.com and ForbesLife.com. The
Forbes brand today reaches more than 75 million people worldwide with its business
message each month through its magazines and 37 licensed local editions around the
globe, Forbes.com, TV, conferences, research, social and mobile platforms. The Forbes
magazine iPad app merges print storytelling with social sharing and the web. Forbes
Media’s brand extensions include conferences, real estate, education, financial
services, and technology license agreements.
The Project:
Forbes Investing Newsletters division is a “premium content” business consisting of 31
individual e-newsletters written by market gurus and specialists with advice to
consumers about investing and investments. Subscriptions for each newsletter varies,
ranging from $95 per year to $699 per year. The online newsletters platform can be
found at www.forbes.com/newsletters.
Forbes is interested in developing a strategy that will help this business grow at a more
aggressive pace. Specifically, students will help develop a strategic plan for one of
Forbes newest titles, Forbes Real Estate Investor, by leveraging data from two of
Forbes’ more established titles, Forbes Investor and Forbes Premium Income Report;
analysis about the economics, operational statistics and promotional practices of a
selection of competitive products; and research gathered from Forbes’ customers.
The project should answer these questions:
1. What is the structure of the e-newsletter investment advice market and how does
Forbes’ new title fit in by content/category/focus, frequency, how long in business
and ownership?
2. How do investing newsletters—specifically those relevant to the Forbes title the
students are evaluating -- market themselves through direct marketing, pricing
schemes, cross sell/upsell, positioning, PR, partnerships? How does this
compare to what Forbes new newsletter and selected established newsletters do
now?
3. Besides subscriptions, are there other revenue streams that financial
enewsletters benefit from?
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4. Why did current customers subscribe to the new newsletter? Why did former
customers or those who did not pay after a free trial unsubscribe? What else do
these people read for this kind of advice?
5. What are your suggestions for a growth strategy for the new newsletter in light of
your findings?
Depending on how the project progresses, if appropriate, students may be able to field
a qualitative survey with some current customers (or recently unsubscribed customers)
that might help with specific recommendations for Forbes’strategy.
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