Media, entertainment, and professional sports

Photography: Tracy Wilcox/Golfweek Arnold Palmer won more than 100 amateur and professional golf tournaments by relying on the skills that his father, a greenkeeper, had taught him. Charismatic yet humble, and a risk taker on the course, he leveraged his popularity with fans into business success, paving the way for future generations of celebrity athletes. […]

For the last decade, the Gallup Organization has surveyed the people of China, as both consumers of goods and employees of the companies that produce those goods. The data provide a unique picture of changing consumer attitudes, market opportunities, and management challenges.

The Idea: The company experimented with business models to grow from its modest roots in nature documentaries into a major player in multiplexes around the world. When I came to IMAX, in 1994, I had been an entrepreneur, a lawyer, and an investment banker. I didn’t know much about the movie business, but I recognized […]

Ron Howard achieved early fame as a child actor on The Andy Griffith Show. Then came a long stint as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. But from an early...

It’s big news when a 168-year-old dies; it’s even bigger news when the demise is self-inflicted. On Thursday, responding to the astonishing (even for British tabloids) phone-hacking and police-paying charges, News International said that it would shutter its News of the World after one more issue this coming Sunday. The company’s predicament and how it […]

Nominated for 10 Tony Awards, the Broadway star began her career as a chorus girl. She went on to play the original Anita in West Side Story and the original...

Ben Bradlee wrote his first newspaper article at age 15, while working as a summer copy boy at the Beverly Evening Times in Massachusetts. He went on to become one of the world’s most famous newspaper editors, steering the Washington Post through Watergate coverage and into the 1990s. During his tenure, the newsroom staff doubled […]

Photography: Sean Pollack Some call him the greatest coach in history. Before retiring in May 2013, Sir Alex Ferguson spent 26 seasons as the manager of Manchester United, the English football (soccer) club that ranks among the most successful and valuable franchises in sports. During that time the club won 13 English league titles along […]

[For more, visit the Communication Insight Center.] Hollywood stars, media mavens and America's most influential businessmen and politicians: that's the...

Why you should use percentages, not words, to express probabilities.

Despite the complications, media professionals need the amateurs.

The composer and conductor on his painstaking creative process

I've been on both sides of public relations. For years, I wrote a syndicated technology column for the Chicago Tribune. Now, I run a consulting firm that...

They voice hard truths without making you lose hope.

More people are consuming content than ever, so leave your sad trombone at home.

In a hyper-connected world, you can never be cold to a customer.

Should companies control all the ways people experience art?

In the ongoing battle between content producers and their customers, the Supreme Court takes a stand.

When someone mentions a film unit, most people think of location shooting—depending on their generation it’s either Robert Shaw duelling the shark off Martha’s Vineyard or John Wayne and the U.S. cavalry charging through Death Valley! But, in fact, most major films are made in a series of predictable phases, of which shooting is only […]

All too often, leaders fail to explain what they mean when they talk about organizational structure, financial results, their own jobs, time management, and corporate culture. Left unclear, these concepts can throw a firm into turmoil—but when given proper focus, they confer extraordinary leverage.