The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies

by Jonathan A. Knee, Bruce C. Greenwald, Ava Seave

Overview

If Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone are so smart, why are their stocks long-term losers?

We live in the age of big Media, with the celebrity moguls telling us that "content is king." But for all the excitement, glamour, drama, and publicity they produce, why can't these moguls and their companies manage to deliver better returns than you'd get from closing your eyes and throwing a dart? The Curse of the Mogul lays bare the inexcusable financial performance beneath big Media's false veneer of power.

By rigorously examining individual media businesses, the authors reveal the difference between judging a company by how many times its CEO is seen in SunValley and by whether it generates consistently superior profits. The book is packed with enough sharp-edged data to bring the most high-flying, hot-air filled mogul balloon crashing down to earth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101140741
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/15/2009
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bruce Greenwald is the Robert Heilbrun Professor of Economics at Columbia University Business School, where his class on strategy draws standing-room-only crowds.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: The Curse of the Mogul 1

Part I The Framework

1 The Media Landscape 13

2 The Landscape of Competitive Advantage 33

3 The Structure of Media Industries 57

4 Debunking Media Myths 67

5 The Internet Is Not Your Friend 81

Part II The Segments and the Strategies

6 Content Is Not King: Movies, Music, and Books 105

7 Efficient Operations in Media: Do You Think I'm Sexy? 123

8 Putting It All Together: Networks and Databases 141

9 Managing Competition in Media: Can't We All Just Get Along? 159

10 All (Profitable) Media Is Local: Newspapers, Theaters, and Communications 173

11 Reinforcing Competitive Advantage in Media 189

Part III Good Mogul/Bad Mogul: The Sources of Success and Failure

12 Bad Mogul: Media Mergers and Acquisitions 205

13 Media M&A That Works: One That Happened and One That Didn't 233

14 Good Mogul: The Outperformers 241

Epilogue: The Future of Media: The End of the Curse? 257

Postscript 269

Notes 277

Index 301

Editorial Reviews

The media industry is facing multiple financial and operational crises on an unprecedented scale. Rampant overpaying for acquisitions and “strategic” investments make incompetent corporate leaders as complicit in media's decline as the difficult economy. The authors, professors at the Columbia Business School, focus their sights broadly but home in on the usual suspects—Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, Disney and an alphabet of flailing companies (e.g., TBS, CNN, TNT). They discuss the dilemma of new media vs. old, the difficulty of establishing efficient operations, mergers that worked and mergers that didn't, and attempt to debunk any number of media myths, most assiduously the “content is king” platitude—considering especially that the movie, music and book industries are all floundering. An interesting subject in theory, but this treatment has the feeling of a homework assignment rather than an exposé and plods along to its meandering conclusion at a snail's pace. Dull writing and a complete lack of human interest detail make this a tough read and a tougher sell. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

The authors, academics and consultants, analyze the destruction of value in media conglomerates caused in part by overpaying for acquisitions. In terms of revenue in 2005, we learn that only 4 of the 15 largest U.S. media companies were broadly held public companies that were not under the absolute control or influence of a mogul. Media mogul is "a metaphor for how the industry has been consistently operated and the results it has produced," and the mogul curse is that "with disturbing consistency over time bad (mogul behavior) begins to overwhelm the good." The authors set out to evaluate the media industry, explain why these companies are self-destructive, and offer new strategies. Losers in media companies outnumber winners, and the losers are the "talent"-performers, writers, producers, and the creative executives. The authors conclude with six principles for the good mogul, including focusing on efficiency and concentrating on business challenges rather than seeking diversification in the global arena. This thoughtful analysis of the media business appears to be also a textbook for consulting seminars and required reading for business students.
—Mary Whaley

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