Henry McGee joined the HBS faculty in 2013 after retiring as President of HBO Home Entertainment, the digital and DVD program distribution division of Home Box Office, the pioneering premium television company. A member of the General Management Unit, he has taught courses in both the MBA and Executive Education programs. Since 2015 McGee has served as a director of TEGNA (NYSE: TGNA), a broadcast and digital media company that owns the largest number of affiliates of the NBC television network. He is also a director of AmerisourceBergen (NYSE: ABC), one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical services company and number 12 on the Fortune 500 list of the biggest corporations in America. In 2018 the National Association of Corporate Directors named McGee to the Directorship 100, the organization’s annual recognition of the country’s most influential boardroom members. Since becoming a faculty member, McGee has coauthored numerous media industry case studies and is a member of the school’s Digital Initiative and Business History Initiative. He is also a director of the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC. McGee serves as faculty co-advisor for both the Entertainment and Media Club and the African American Student Union and is a recipient of the Robert F. Greenhill Award for service to the HBS community. McGee joined HBO immediately after graduating from HBS in 1979. During the course of his 34-year career with the company, he held posts in a wide range of areas including family programming, film acquisition and international coproduction. Named president of HBO Home Entertainment in 1995, McGee received numerous industry awards for his pioneering use of Internet-based marketing and early adoption of the high definition format for the company’s DVD releases. Named one of the 50 most powerful African Americans in the entertainment business by Black Enterprise magazine, McGee oversaw the digital and DVD release of numerous blockbusters including The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and Game of Thrones. With the launch of offices in London and Toronto, he drove the expansion of the company’s international business and HBO’s titles are now distributed in more than 70 countries around the globe. McGee also served as a director of the Digital Entertainment Group, the trade association of entertainment and electronics manufacturers focused on fostering new technologies. In 2008 he was inducted into the Video Hall of Fame, the home entertainment industry’s most prestigious honor. McGee has a strong interest in the governance of nonprofit organizations and has been especially involved in the arts. He has served as president of both the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Foundation, the nation’s largest modern dance organization, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He has also been a board member of the Sundance Institute, The Public Theater, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the New 42nd Street, the organization overseeing the revitalization and management of seven historic theaters in Times Square. Currently he is a member of the executive committee of the Black Filmmaker Foundation. After graduating from Harvard College, magna cum laude, in 1974, McGee worked as a reporter for Newsweek magazine in its New York and Washington bureaus. He covered stories in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, education and entertainment and also served as an on-camera reporter for Newsweek Broadcasting.
Publications
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Case
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August 2018
(Revised September 2019)
Magnus Resch: Transforming the Art Market Through Transparency Henry McGee and Sarah Mehta Economist and entrepreneur Magnus Resch was on a mission to make the art market more transparent. To that end, in 2014, he began building the Magnus app, which catalogued the price and transaction history of millions of works of art. Users could download the app, take a photo of any flat artwork, and the app would display that piece’s price along with other pertinent information. Resch believed that such radical transparency would grow the small, rather insular, network of serious art collectors. By May 2018, the app had garnered strong user engagement, with over 10,000 new downloads per month. But Resch was not yet generating revenue from the Magnus app, which was free for users to download. The case explores Resch’s options for monetizing the app, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each option. Keywords: art market;
transparency;
Art Pricing;
Business Startups;
Decision Making;
Innovation Strategy;
Culture;
Business Strategy;
Mobile Technology;
Fine Arts Industry;
Information Technology Industry;
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Case
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September 2017
(Revised December 2017)
Hulu: Redefining the Way People Experience TV Henry W. McGee and Christine Snively In May 2017, Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins announced the launch of Hulu Live TV, a new offering that would "change the way people experience TV." The new service would allow consumers to bypass traditional cable and satellite delivery and use the Internet to access live streams of more than 40 popular broadcast and cable networks along with Hulu’s existing suite of on-demand programming. Priced at $39.99 per month, Hulu Live TV offered consumers a tremendous savings over traditional cable program packages and allowed subscribers to watch programs on Internet-connected televisions and a wide range of mobile devices. Hopkins also announced that the company would make a major push into the production of exclusive, original programming, one of the industry's most competitive areas. Hulu's new initiatives occurred during a major transformation in the TV industry as the Internet had revolutionized every aspect of the business. Industry observers wondered if Hulu could successfully compete against the entrenched cable, satellite, and telephone companies (known as Multichannel Video Programming Distributors, or MVPDs). Was $39.99 per month a sustainable price point for Hulu's new virtual MVPD (vMVPD)? How big a war chest would the company need to succeed in the original programming arena where competitors annually spent billions of dollars? Could Hulu navigate potential conflicts with the individual business plans of its owners: Comcast, 21st Century Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros.—some of the most powerful companies in the entertainment business? Keywords: television industry;
internet;
disruptive innovation;
competitive strategy;
Television Entertainment;
Internet;
Disruptive Innovation;
Competitive Strategy;
Price;
Media and Broadcasting Industry;
Entertainment and Recreation Industry;
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Teaching Note
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October 2016
(Revised March 2018)
Apple: Privacy vs. Safety? (A) and (B) Nien-hê Hsieh, Henry McGee and Sarah McAra Teaching Note for HBS No. 316-069.
Citation:
Hsieh, Nien-hê, Henry McGee, and Sarah McAra. "Apple: Privacy vs. Safety? (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 317-021, October 2016. (Revised March 2018.)
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Teaching Plan
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February 2017
The Black List Henry McGee and Sarah McAra Teaching Note for HBS No. 317-027.
Citation:
McGee, Henry, and Sarah McAra. "The Black List." Harvard Business School Teaching Plan 317-087, February 2017.
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Case
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March 2016
(Revised November 2017)
Apple: Privacy vs. Safety (A) Henry McGee, Nien-hê Hsieh and Sarah McAra In 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook debuted the iPhone 6S with enhanced security measures that enflamed a debate on privacy and public safety around the world. The iPhone 6S, amid a heightened concern for privacy following the 2013 revelation of clandestine U.S. surveillance programs, employed a default encryption system that prevented both Apple and government authorities from accessing data stored on the device. Law enforcement officials warned that the encryption hindered investigations for criminal cases and international terrorism and called on Apple to build a backdoor, a way to bypass the encryption. But Cook maintained that any backdoor would compromise customers' privacy and security. In 2016, a federal judge ordered Apple to provide technical assistance to unlock the iPhone used by one of the two terrorists who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. Apple refused to comply with the order and asked the government to withdraw its demand. As the court case unfolded, Cook considered his responsibilities to the U.S. government as well as to Apple's customers, employees, and shareholders. Keywords: iphone;
encryption;
data privacy;
Safety;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Mobile Technology;
Civil Society or Community;
National Security;
Leadership;
Technology Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
United States;
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Teaching Note
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October 2015
(Revised February 2016)
Comcast Corporation Sunil Gupta, Henry McGee and Felix Oberholzer-Gee In March 2015, Richard Plepler, the CEO of Home Box Office (HBO) announced the company's new 'over the top,' or OTT service, HBO Now, that consumers could stream online for a monthly fee of $14.99 without paying for a cable subscription. Soon, CBS followed and announced its own OTT version for $5.99 a month. Why were HBO and CBS doing this? Was this the beginning of the unbundling of TV? And how should Comcast respond to these changes? Keywords: television industry;
television;
Marketing;
Television Entertainment;
Telecommunications Industry;
Citation:
Gupta, Sunil, Henry McGee, and Felix Oberholzer-Gee. "Comcast Corporation." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 516-048, October 2015. (Revised February 2016.)
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Case
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April 2015
(Revised December 2016)
Comcast Corporation Sunil Gupta, Henry McGee, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Margaret L. Rodriguez
Citation:
Gupta, Sunil, Henry McGee, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Margaret L. Rodriguez. "Comcast Corporation." Harvard Business School Case 715-457, April 2015. (Revised December 2016.)
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