Should You Cancel or Sell Analyst?

You are the CEO of a media company. One of your current TV shows is **Analyst**. The show has about **2 years of remaining commercial life**. You are deciding whether to keep it, cancel it, improve it, or sell it. You also have another project, **Shark Bank**, which competes for management attention and capital. An exhibit (not reproduced here) provides success/failure payoffs and probabilities for both projects. You should **not assume a 50/50 success probability** unless it is explicitly given. Assume all monetary values are in **USD**, and that subscriber value refers to **contribution profit over the relevant horizon**. Answer the following: 1. What factors should the company consider when deciding whether to **cancel** Analyst? 2. How would you compute and compare the **expected return** of Analyst versus Shark Bank? What clarifying questions would you ask before calculating? 3. What actions could improve Analyst's **profitability**? Separate **revenue levers** from **cost levers**. 4. If the company is considering **selling** Analyst instead of keeping it, what additional factors should be considered? 5. Suppose an acquirer offers **$51M** for Analyst. If Analyst is sold, the company expects to lose **1.5M subscribers**, and each lost subscriber is worth **$32** in contribution profit over the horizon. Shark Bank is expected to generate **$22M total profit after two years**. How would you evaluate whether to sell Analyst now? How might your recommendation change if the company is highly **cash-constrained**?