ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the use of media analytics in four key entertainment media fields: feature film production, television entertainment, video games, and sports marketing. While data analysis has played a role in all four media areas almost since their inceptions, it is becoming an increasingly critical tool during the traditionally creative process of content production, as well as in the more traditional applications of marketing and distribution. The chapter explores the questions and challenges that executives in each of the four media sectors are asking media analysts to help solve, the sources of data used by analysts in those industries, and the challenges specific to working as an analyst within each of the four industries. The chapter provides discussion questions, short assignments, and cases in each of the four industry sectors to help students deepen their understanding of the work being done by media analysts in each of the featured entertainment media sectors. The chapter also explores the special challenges of working as a data analyst in creative industries with deep traditions of making decisions based on the “gut instincts” and “creative judgments” of executives and other star talent.
