MBA Concentration at Columbia Business School

The MBA concentration in the Management of Information, Communications and Media is a unique approach to the study of media management. It was inaugurated in the 1992-93 academic year, and chaired by Eli Noam until 2003.

The concentration is designed for students interested in converging areas of:
-mass media such as television, film, and arts & entertainment
-telecommunications and electronic network services
-information systems, including computers and office automation
-"Information Management," a rapidly growing function responsible for the management of companies information flows.
-electronic commerce

The philosophy of the new concentration is to:
(a) create synergies across divisions, such as Marketing, Finance, Management of Organizations, Business Economics, etc.
(b) prepare students for the merging of the major components of the information sector - media, communications, computers, information systems, etc. The curriculum provides the inter-media exposure and perspective needed to succeed in the future information environment.
(c) take advantage of Columbia's location in New York, the country's most significant business and information center.

The concentration coordinator is Jonathan Knee of Evercore Partners. Faculty involved in the courses of concentration includes Profs. Bruce Greenwald, Kathy Harrigan, Morris Holbrook, Eli Noam, Eric Johnson, and Bernd Schmitt. Distinguished practitioners and observers of the media and information sectors also offer courses.

Leo Hindery, former president of TCI, AT&T Broadband, and the YES Network, is Executive in Residence.

Courses that can be taken at other Columbia Schools for purposes of the concentration include:

Engineering School: Network Theory; Information Theory; Computer-communications Networks; Switching Systems Architecture; Telecommunications Network Control and Management.

Law School: Intellectual Property; Technological Properties; Music Industry Contracts; International Property Issues in Computer Software; Advanced Topics in Technological Properties; Law and the Theatre; International and Comparative Protection of Intellectual Property; Law and the Film Industry; Law and the Visual Arts.

School of International and Public Affairs: Global Communications and World Affairs; International Media and Communications; Communications in the Next Century : The United Nation's Role.

School of Journalism: Management in Communication - Newspaper; Management in Communication - Magazines; The Impact of Media on Society.

School of the Arts: Production and Authorship in the American Film Industry; Distribution, Marketing and Exhibition; Financing Theatrical Motion Pictures; Film Producing; Theatre Management and Administration; Advanced Seminar in Theatre Management; Critical Issues in Theatre Management.

Student Organizations

The Technology Business Group and the Media Management Association.

Ph.D. Program in Communications

CITI also played a role in co-founding the campus-wide Ph.D. program in Communications. The goal of the program is to "connect the strengths of the Columbia journalism tradition with intellectual work in the humanities and human sciences in a way that enhances the practice of and our understanding of journalism.'
The program offers an interdisciplinary approach to students in one of four specialities (Journalism and Public Life, Social Impact of Media, Economics and Regulation of Communications, Information and Technological Systems) and brings together faculty and courses from other departments and Columbia divisions, including Political Science and Sociology, and the schools of Business, Law, and Engineering. Successful completion of the program indicates a mastery of the theory, technology, economics and social aspects of communications and media. The Director of the program is Andie Tucher.

Media Management Textbook

A major effort is the creation of a curriculum/course/textbook in media and information management. It involves the creation of a substantive tool content for media and communications management. The traditional approach to this has been to survey various media industries-telecom, wireless, cable, etc. Our mission is to instead introduce students to concepts and tools of management from all parts of the business curriculum

• media accounting
• financing media
• pricing of information products
• marketing media
• demand analysis for media products
• media human resources
• media strategy
• capacity planning
• entertainment law; etc.

Alumni

CITI contribution to students can also be seen through one testimonial of an alumnus, who recently wrote:

"Your unit gave me during 1983-84, while completing my MBA, the environment to research the then primitive concept of pay TV...
I can recall the exact moment and place (on Broadway, near 116th St) where the solution occurred to me, and intend revisiting it on the way to seeing you on the 11th. I pitched the idea to an investor group of newspaper owners immediately after leaving Columbia in April 1984, they bought in, we set up a company called M-Net, launched the service, broke even in 1988 and did an IPO in 1990. ...
Over the years the group expanded out of its base in South Africa to become the biggest media group by far on the continent of Africa (you may have seen some recent coverage in [Time or on CNN]. We also manage the pay TV platforms (much like your DirecTV) in Greece and Thailand, and own 50% of the biggest instant messaging service in China called QQ, which some 48 million Chinese use...
I should like you to know that, if your unit never existed, at least my life and the lives of our 11,800 employees in almost 50 countries would have been very different."