Frank N. Magid Associates

Frank N. Magid Associates is the world’s largest strategic consulting firm serving the media, entertainment, and communications industries. Since its founding in 1957, Magid has built a sound international reputation on two key points: high standards of quality in the design and conduct of social and business research and a commitment to the useful application of our knowledge and skills to the client’s benefit through our consulting services. We take pride in being the most innovative firm in our field and providing the finest customer service possible. Our commitment is to the success of our clients in achieving their goals. The measurement of our ability to help our clients succeed is our continued growth and the long-lasting relationships we have achieved.

Magid’s North American television division currently serves more than 150 local television stations. Our services have evolved from traditional news consulting to corporate strategy development, station branding and marketing, advice on the acquisition of syndicated programming, sales and marketing, the development of online businesses, and creation of digital channels. Among our clients are ABC, NBC, and CBS, and FOX as well as media conglomerates such as Belo Corp., Cox Enterprises, LIN Broadcasting, Meredith Corporation, Raycom Media, and many more.

Our entertainment division serves all of the major Hollywood studios and television networks, working closely with them on first-run syndicated product as well as daytime and prime-time offerings. Our unique combination of research and consulting services has been employed for the development and sales of numerous popular syndicated programs, including Entertainment Tonight, Oprah Winfrey, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and Dr. Phil. In addition to conducting concept testing for the studios’ prime-time television offerings, we work with them to form co-partnership ventures with various international broadcasters, many of which are our clients. Along with the studios, our client list includes A&E, Lifetime, Discovery, Court TV, Sony Pictures Television, MSNBC, King World Productions, and CBS Paramount Television.

Our international division serves broadcasters, publishers, and Internet clients throughout Europe and the Far East. Our work in the UK involved providing counsel to 14 of the 16 ITV franchise applicants in the early 1990s, and we are pleased to say we were successful in helping nine of them win their franchise. Since our work began here, we launched nine national channels as private television came to Western Europe and Southeast Asia. Our international clients include the BBC, TVI in Portugal, TV2 in Denmark, MTV3 in Finland, and many more.

Our print division, Minnesota Opinion Research Incorporated, is the largest provider of custom research to the publishing industry. Our work with MORI has given us the opportunity to increase our focus on the issue of convergence of broadcasting and publishing entities across North America. Clients include USA Today, The Washington Post, Freedom Newspapers, Newhouse, Meredith Corporation, Lee Enterprises, and more.

Our new media research and consultation division was created in 1994, when the term “Internet” existed only on the fringe of mainstream society. In our 12 years of Internet and new media experience, we have had consulting relationships with a wide variety of new media clients, ranging from nationally recognized portal, content, and e-commerce sites to regionally focused information sites and access providers. We have explored for clients the viability of their current new media products, the pathways to future expansion and revenue growth, and the potential of future technologies to benefit both our clients and the way people use media and technology. Our clients include Microsoft, TheStreet.com, MSNBC.com, CNBC.com, MarketWatch, Dell, Charles Schwab, AT&T, HGTV.com, apartments.com, monster.com, pogo.com, cars.com, Time Warner, Warner Bros., Sony, United Airlines, GE Appliances, Ernst & Young, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, IBM, and many others.

As video gaming increased in popularity, we added a team of analysts and consultants who are experts in the games marketplace. Magid has conducted hundreds of qualitative and quantitative gaming studies for companies in the U.S. and Europe, working for nearly all game publishers, as well as Sony Corporation in the development of the PSP and PS3. Other clients include Electronic Arts, Lucas Arts, Atari, Ubisoft, and Sega of America.

Several years ago, Frank N. Magid Associates created Magid Media Futures™ in response to some common issues and themes expressed by our clients. The rapidly changing media marketplace presents a wide variety of challenges and opportunities for our clients. Because of the dynamic nature, complexity, and speed of those changes, it is particularly difficult to keep up, let alone evaluate the impact those changes make on your core business and the new business opportunities that may emerge as a result. Throughout the years and through our many industry relationships, we have participated in developing and launching a wide variety of concepts, programs, networks, and technologies designed to take advantage of changing consumer behaviors and attitudes. To enable us to provide the most current information available to our clients, we conduct Magid Media Futures™ surveys year around, contacting approximately 8,000 individuals. Our constantly updated database allows us to spot trends in television viewership, Internet usage, newspaper readership, etc., and our Magid Media Futures™ clients can use that data to modify their strategic business plans to best meet the needs of a changing marketplace.

Magid developed The Millennial Strategy Program™, a program to assist companies doing business in North America to develop research-based strategies to address consumers in the Millennial Generation. A series of quantitative research projects, ethnographic studies, and real-time feedback sessions that focuses on the Millennial Generation forms the basis of the strategy development process for all clients involved in the program. These 8- to 28-year-olds will have an impact on all aspects of consumer behavior in the future, from how they watch television, to movie attendance, to shopping habits, to use of new communication technologies. Our MSP clients include Meredith Corporation, ABC Family, ABC-Disney Television Group, Sony Pictures Television, Anheuser-Busch, DIRECTV, and many more.