Dr. Wyatt’s professional background encompasses both academia and industry. After completing his doctoral work at UCLA, he was tenured at the University of North Texas and the University of Arizona. On the academic front, his book, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood, has been in print for 30 years and is used widely as a text for media industry and media history courses. Wyatt has been a Keynote Speaker at both NYU’s Stern School of Business Symposium on Craft and Commerce in Cinema and at the University of London, and an invited speaker in England, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Canada, Germany and Qatar.

Wyatt has over 15 years’ experience understanding consumer and viewer behaviors, opinions, and attitudes through media market research. Wyatt came to URI after working in the media industries for NBCUniversal, Viacom and the ABC TV Network. For ABC News and other news/information providers, Wyatt enacted research projects to gauge the appeal of talent, topics/issues, and new delivery systems. He was responsible for leading qualitative and quantitative primary research initiatives for such cable networks as E!, CMT, Style Network, G4 and selected digital properties. His book Creating the Viewer: Market Research and the Evolving Media Ecosystem considers key market research methods for understanding audience members and the ways that these protocols have been challenged by the digital environment.

Wyatt has taught at the University of Rhode Island since 2015. He has served on the Faculty Senate, as Department Chair for Communication Studies and as Associate Director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media.