Our Industry

If knowledge is power, then what does that make the industry that sells it?

Lucrative is one answer. The Media & Entertainment industry (“M&E”) generates more than US$3 trillion in global annual revenues (and growing every year).

At its core, M&E is the industrial system that originates, controls and monetises intellectual property expressed as content, in order to monetise the attention, beliefs and behaviour of global audiences.

But revenue is only the surface.

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With more than eight billion people in the world and nearly 6 billion now online, M&E shapes almost everything we believe we know — as neighbours, as communities and as nations. The market for what we all think we know is as much a part of content production and social media mania as any movie, song, news broadcast, video game or conspiracy theory can make it. M&E is the mechanism used to control the narrative. All narrative.

What binds it all together is commercial enterprise: the organisations, strategies and systems that create, distribute and monetise content at scale. This is achieved by means of the Audience. Cultivating audiences is what M&E is all about. Unlike other asset classes, where money is used to acquire influence, the Media & Entertainment industry converts influence directly into money. The Media C-Suite refers to that inversion as Narrative Capital.

Whether you build, manage or invest into media businesses, the forces shaping your outcomes are the same forces that determine how Narrative Capital is formed, scaled and priced. The Four Pillars below structure how we analyse that process.

The Four Pillars of the Media C-Suite

Creative Value

The source and structure of value creation across the Media & Entertainment industry.

This pillar examines how commercial content is conceived, produced and positioned within the industry’s internal ecosystem. It explores the upstream creative forces that generate intellectual property and the process for capturing, extending and monetising that value downstream.

Think: Value Creation Strategy

The Audience

The ultimate source of more than US$3 trillion in global revenues.

Audiences pay for access to content. Advertisers pay for access to audiences. Together they form the economic core of the Media & Entertainment industry. This pillar analyses how demand is formed, measured, grown and owned, and how the relationship between upstream creatives and downstream executives is shifting as creators build direct access to their markets.

Think: Revenue Strategy

The Business

Corporate, commercial and creative strategy within Media & Entertainment companies.

This pillar examines how media businesses are built and run. It explores the organisational models, strategic choices and operational designs that shape how companies build value for audiences and investors alike; and where founders, executives and shareholders align, or fail to align, around those aims.

Think: Corporate & Commercial Strategy

The Money

Capital and investment strategy in Media & Entertainment.

The engine of more than US$3 trillion in global revenues.

Here we explore how money, creativity and calculated risk combine to power our industry’s growth. This pillar focuses on the structures, instruments and models that determine who finances the value of content, how that value is shared and where investment opportunities emerge across the media value chain.

Think: Capital Strategy