Higher education is huge.  $320 billion-plus annual revenues,

Media is super-colossal.  Informed estimates suggest the media industry soaks up 10 percent of GDP, some $1.7 trillion annually. 

Purchase price 

Higher education, a major purchase, is the second or third largest individual purchase in a person's life.  

Much of a person’s media consumption is purchased as utilities: cable tv, cellular phone service, magazine subscriptions. Single purchases of movies, music, books, concerts – are small-dollar transactions, easily affordable.   

Purchase period 

For its purchasers, higher education can be a multi-year experience.  When it’s completed, for most purchasers there are no repeat sales.

Utility-style purchases of media – cable tv, cellular phone service, subscriptions – enable continuous lifelong repeat consumption, which is appreciated by buyer and seller alike.

Essentially, what is purchased?

Similarity. Media industry people call it ‘programming;’ higher education people call it ‘curriculum.’  In either case, it can be called ‘content.’

Similarity. In both industries, value can be added to the content and to the purchase by the means of presentation. “He’s a great lecturer!” “I loved the sound and special effects in that movie!”

Similarity. In both industries, a purchaser may reap additional value from memories of the experience.

Difference. The higher education purchaser often expects future benefits: higher lifetime earnings, a desirable career. 

Product offerings

Similarity. Both industries are content rich. New and repeat programming are abundant, exceeding any purchaser’s consumption capacity. 

Difference. Media industry delivery methods are robust, take full advantage of technology and are ever-developing. Delivery methods in higher education are limited and slow to modernize.

Personnel 

Media industry executives and administrators are entrenched, slow to change.  For example, television advertising still rules the advertising industry, despite saturation and declining television consumption. 

Media industry content creators and providers are vibrant, inventive, unusually open to new ideas and fresh approaches, including the technological.

Faculty members are higher education’s content creators and providers; they are entrenched, resistant to change.

Higher education’s administrators and executives are open to new ideas and customer service methods.