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He assumed the role of CEO for one of the world’s biggest entertainment companies on February 25, 2020.

Nearly one year later, the leadership of The Walt Disney Company by Bob Chapek is getting praise from one of the top financial analysts on Wall Street.

Only, it’s not so much for Disney+ and Hulu growth, along with international OTT consumption that excites Michael Nathanson. Rather, it’s theme park revenue that’s eye-popping to him.

Bob Chapek’s Magic Kingdom that is Disney under his leadership appears to be a bigger success than anyone on Wall Street, including the Senior Analyst at MoffettNathanson, imagined.

That’s because Disney’s fiscal Q1 2022 results are in stark contrast with its fiscal Q4 2021 performance. With the release of that financial health report, Disney “meaningfully missed” MoffettNathanson’s Q4 2021 revenue and EBIT estimates. The company had also warned about its near-term profit outlook and all-important Direct-to-Consumer subscriber momentum.

In response to that report, MoffettNathanson “significantly cut” its fiscal 2022 EBIT estimates for Disney “with across the board reductions in profits.”

Then came a SEC filing from Disney disclosing their decision to invest some $33 billion in content during fiscal 2022, compared to $25 billion in fiscal 2021. The announcement came alongside “weak” fiscal Q1 2022 subscriber guidance from Netflix, which temporarily torpedoed stocks in the OTT subsector.

Yet, Disney+ is showing signs of life, with Secrets of Sulphur Springs cleared for a third season and feature films including Encanto enjoying strong audience response beyond in-cinema screenings. Furthermore, Hulu and ESPN+ are attracting consumers, while Disney’s international OTT offerings continue to magnetize viewers.

Then came the “massive surprise” from Disney late Wednesday, even with lackluster results from its linear networks.

The theme parks are the driver, and Nathanson is amazed at the performance. In an investor note distributed Thursday, he said, “When we reflect about the massive surprise that Disney delivered in Fiscal Q1 2022, we are primarily focused on the incredible beat in Parks profits that came from the most amazing set of drivers that we have ever seen. Consider this: from the September quarter (Q4 2021) to the December quarter (Q1 2022), domestic park revenues increased by $1.33 billion while domestic park profits increased by a nearly identical $1.31 billion. In other words, in a period of rising inflation, the domestic park business added zero incremental costs as revenues surged. The recovery was driven by a stunning rebound in both volume and price.”

In short order, Disney’s domestic parks are back to 2019 levels and poised to put up “a massive recovery in profits” over the next three quarters.

While the Parks segment will drive the earnings revisions for Disney, will the DTC results cause a further re-rating in the shares? Here, MoffettNathanson is less convinced. “DTC revenue growth of 34% was just slightly (-100 basis points) below our forecast,” Nathanson said. “Two million of these subs were driven by an automatic bundle with Hulu Live and another 2.6 million came from Hotstar, which we tend to ignore given the $1 monthly RPU. Netting that out, despite more markets to pull from, the 7.1 million in quarterly adds was about 60% of the net subscriber additions of the same quarter last year. With Fiscal Q2 2022 expected to be down from this 7.1 million net subscriber rate, our second half estimate is assuming 15 million during the April to September time frame, which have been historically seasonally slow months to add new SVOD subscribers.”

To MoffettNathanson, the biggest DTC surprise is the drop in Hulu SVOD RPU from $13.51 in fiscal Q1 2021 to $12.96 this quarter. It was driven by slower Hulu ad revenues per user and Black Friday price discounting that added lower RPU subscribers. “By our math, the growth in Hulu SVOD revenue has now slowed to low teens revenue growth,” Nathanson said. “It will be interesting to see if this deceleration and ad weakness is systematic to the AVOD/SVOD hybrid market.”

Still, those concerns are dwarfed by the theme parks business. As such, MoffettNathanson is raising its FY 2022 EBIT by $500 million (4%), led by the upside at Disneyland and at Walt Disney World. It is also hiking Disney’s total company revenue estimate by 1% to $85 billion again, and raising its FY 2022 segment EBIT estimate to $13.3 billion “due to a much faster snap back in profitability” at the parks.

Unfortunately, this is offset by lower EBIT at DMED driven by $465 million negative revision at DTC.

Lastly, MoffettNathanson updated its pricing model and is maintaining its Neutral rating for DIS, along with its $165 target price.

At 10am Eastern on Thursday, DIS was priced at $156.50 and rising, with more than a 6% climb on strong volume.

As veteran public relations executive and “Zoom expert” Rosemary Ravinal sees it, some of the most memorable lines from speechwriting use “the rule of threes” to emphasize ideas and increase retention. How so? By taking advantage of the way our brains cling to patterns. Good news: You can harness the power of three for your speeches and presentations with three simple techniques.

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Stephen Dubner (left) and Dr. Steven Levitt

You’ll be able to get your freak on at the NAB Show this year.

Stephen Dubner and Dr. Steven Levitt, co-authors of the “Freakonomics” book series and podcast hosts on the Freakonomics Radio Network, will keynote the session “Why the Media & Entertainment Industry Should Think Like a Freak” on April 27.

Described by NAB as some of the “leading minds in next-step thinking,” the duo has insight into “leveraging new and transformative perspectives to boost innovation and implement measurable business applications.”

NAB Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Global Connections and Events Chris Brown said the media and entertainment community is learning how to navigate the evolving ways of interfacing with data, content and networking.

[For More News on the NAB Show See Our NAB Show News Page]

Dubner and Levitt were approached in 2003 to co-author “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.” The book, which applied economic theories to questions about everyday life, has sold 7 million copies and been translated into 40 languages.

Dubner is an author, journalist and radio and TV personality. He is host of the “Freakonomics Radio” podcast, which airs on NPR stations and receives 8 million monthly downloads. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker and Time.

Levitt is an economist, author, researcher and podcast host. He is a tenured professor and the director of the Gary Becker Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics at The University of Chicago. He hosts “People I (Mostly) Admire” on the Freakonomics Radio Network.

The post Freakonomics Co-Authors Want You to Think Like a Freak appeared first on Radio World.

Digital sales for local U.S. radio stations generated $1.5 billion in 2021, a growth of 33%, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau’s annual report on digital activities.

The findings highlight efforts of stations to drive results for local advertisers, said Erica Farber, RAB president and CEO. “The focus on the importance of digital training has produced dividends for stations and sellers alike,” she said.

The report showed that the average station made $36,250 in digital revenue in 2021 with the average market cluster making $1.6 million. Top-performing market clusters made more than $10 million, even in some of the smaller markets, RAB said.

[Visit Radio World’s People News Page]

“I’m happy to report that we underestimated radio’s digital determination when we published last year’s report,” said Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, which compiled the report and predicted that radio sales would increase 18%.

“It’s quite impressive, especially when you see that little stat that shows how digitally savvy radio sales reps are in the eyes of local advertisers,” Borrell said in the RAB’s announcement.

The 47-page report covers the activity of some 3,000 radio stations. The findings are part of the RAB and Borrell’s 10th annual report “Finally, A Digital Bounty: Radio’s Digital Sales Rise 33%.” That annual report analyzed online ad revenue from 3,645 radio stations, survey responses from 1,107 local radio buyers and comments from 256 radio managers.

The post Radio Stations’ Digital Sales Increased by 33% in 2021 appeared first on Radio World.

Photo Courtesy Dick Taylor

Twelve year ago, radio broadcast engineer Tom Ray, penned these words: “Unless we give Joe Consumer a reason to go out and purchase an HD Radio for his car – until he can obtain it easily and at a reasonable cost, and a device that works – I fear HD Radio is going to go the way of FM quad and AM stereo, relegated to the scrap pile of history.”

Tom Ray wrote his article for Radio World when he was the vice president/corporate director of engineering for Buckley Broadcasting/WOR Radio in New York City. He was a strong and vocal supporter of HD Radio and his WOR was one of the first AMs on the air with an HD Radio signal. So, any broadcaster that read Tom’s article, “HD Radio Shouldn’t Be This Hard,” should have taken it as a wake-up call about steps the radio industry needed to take to stay relevant in their listeners’ lives.

Buying a New Car in 2010
Tom is a loyal Ford customer, so when his Explorer went to the automobile graveyard with 230,000 miles on it, Tom wanted to get a new Ford Escape, equipped with HD Radio. The only problem was, Ford wasn’t putting HD Radios into their Escapes, instead, they were pushing Satellite Radio. (Tom noted that his wife listened only to Satellite Radio in her car, saying “in her opinion there is nothing worth listening to in New York’s Hudson Valley, 50 miles north of New York City.)

This should have been yet another radio industry wake-up call about its future.

I encourage you to click on the link and read what Tom Ray wrote a dozen years ago about how difficult it was to put an HD Radio into a new car which, at that time, didn’t offer OEM HD Radios and how he, as a broadcast engineer, was totally frustrated trying to install an aftermarket one.

Streaming Radio at Home
Since Christmas 2017, when my wife gave me my first Amazon Echo smart speaker, our Echo family has quickly grown to four of these devices. There is nowhere you can be in our home and not ask Alexa for something.

Since 2017, all of our in-home radio listening is via streaming.

While we also occasionally streamed radio in the car, on all of our road trips from 2018–2021, SiriusXM always seemed to be offering a 3-month free listening trial that I can honestly say we enjoyed the listening to. But, I’ve never been a subscriber, because other than road trips I spend very little time in the car.

Streaming Radio in the Car
In October, while enjoying my latest free 3-month trial for SiriusXM radio, I decided it was time to bring my in-house streaming radio habit into both of our cars. We own a 2006 Subaru Forester and a 2009 Honda Accord.

The Subaru doesn’t have an AUX input, the Honda does.

Streaming in the Subaru was accomplished with a Bluetooth receiver that will broadcast on any FM frequency (88.1 works best). In the Honda, this same device’s output was plugged into an AUX receptacle.

The result is, as soon as either my wife or myself enters one of our cars, the Nulaxy KM18 immediately pairs with our iPhones. I installed the AINOPE Car Phone Holder Mount to hold our phones, and keep them easily accessible to control whatever we would like to listen to.

Total cost for each car: $33.43. Time to install, virtually nil. I just plugged the Nulaxy KM18 into a power port and it was operational. The AINIOPE holder easily clamps to an air vent on the dashboard and holds any smartphone.

Unlike the nightmare that Tom Ray experienced back in 2010 trying to put HD Radio into his car, this installation by me, a non-engineer, was a piece of cake.

A Call to Action
I recently sat in on a Radio World webinar called “A Call to Action, radio’s existential battle for the dash.” Paul McLane, Managing Director of Content/Editor in Chief of Radio World at Radio World/Future U.S., hosted the webinar and did an excellent job. However, one particular piece of information shared during the presentation that I thought was crucial was, how Mercedes-Benz was equipping their vehicles’ radio screens with the following pre-sets: SiriusXM, FM, AM and TuneIn Radio.

TuneIn Radio is the App I use for most of my radio listening, but why was it chosen by Mercedes-Benz? Turns out the answer is, “TuneIn’s radio stations can be accessed worldwide in 197 countries on more than 200 different platforms and devices.” TuneIn says it “provides the displaced radio listener a connection to home with local, national, and international stations anywhere they go and on any device.”

In other words, why would any audio consumer need DAB, DAB+, Digital Radio Mondiale, HD Radio, AM or FM when they can receive any radio station in crystal clear audio via streaming?

With the exception of the proprietary content offered by SiriusXM, everything else is available via streaming at no charge.

Cellular Plan
Now it goes without saying, that streaming consumes data. Each cellphone service provider offers different plans and different price rates. My wife and I are on Verizon’s unlimited phone/text/data plan. We have no landline phone in our home and our iPhones are our lifeline to being connected with each other, our family, our community and the world.

I’ve found streaming radio in our cars provides us with audio quality that is pristine. There’s no buffering or dropout, and it’s been a more reliable signal than AM, FM or SiriusXM radio, especially when traveling through tunnels.

Streaming Apps
I thought you might be interested in knowing what streaming Apps I have on my iPhone, here’s the current list:

• TuneIn Pro
• Audacy
• Pandora
• Spotify
• Amazon Music
• NPR ONE
• YouTube
• Simple Radio
• StreamS
• Apple Podcasts
• AccuRadio
• 650AM WSM
• Stitcher

Why I Prefer Streaming My Radio
We live far enough away from Washington, D.C., that radio signals for WTOP or WETA experience lots of noise and dropout, depending atmospherics, sometimes making them totally unlistenable. However, their streams are always crystal clear.

This fall Sue and I escaped to Cape Cod for a week and when I get on the peninsula, I love turning on WFCC – Cape Cod’s Classical station – 107.5 FM. Now with streaming radio, I can dial up WFCC on my TuneIn radio App and listen when we’re back home in Virginia.

Full disclosure, I am the midday DJ on WMEX-FM in Rochester, N.H., But even if I weren’t on the station, WMEX-FM would be my No. 1 pre-set for streaming. Gary James, the station’s morning man and program director, puts together a music mix that I find absolutely fabulous. It’s the music of my life.

Which brings me to another important point, radio today is global. No longer is your radio station competing just with other local stations, but radio that is streaming from anywhere on planet Earth.

Streaming also makes it possible for ON DEMAND spoken-word radio, also known as podcasts, to be easily available in the car.

Simington on Streaming
FCC commissioner Nathan Simington recently addressed Ohio broadcasters saying, “content delivery power had shifted away from broadcasters – stations and networks – and toward ‘online platforms,’ something he thinks the FCC needs to recognize in its quadrennial review of media ownership regs.”

He warned that: “Online media platforms are growing rapidly and threaten dominance over traditional media platforms; and Broadcast advertising revenue has flatlined, having been siphoned off from higher margin online platforms.”

The Future is Streaming
88% of the world’s population now uses mobile broadband as its main source of internet access, and nearly 90% of homes in the United States now have internet streaming. 2021 saw an estimated 22% ad industry growth rate, which Magna Global said was “the highest growth rate ever recorded” by this agency, beating a 12.5% growth rate recorded in the year 2000. The caveat however is, digital dominated traditional advertising raking in 64.4% of the growth in ad spending.

RAIN reports “The U.S. recorded music industry will exceed a 48-year revenue record set in 1999 (based on current estimates),” all coming from revenues paid by streaming music services.

The Harvard Business Review recently published “4 Principles to Guide Your Digital Transformation,” by Greg Satell, Andrea Kates and Todd McLees. In it, the authors wrote, “digital transformation is not just about technology. We’re desperately in need of a shift in focus. Leaders must inspire and empower their entire organization to boldly reimagine their work environment, customer needs, product offering, and even the purpose of the enterprise.”

Tom Ray was the proverbial “canary in the coal shaft” back in 2010, with few paying attention. Sadly, based on the early news coming out of the 2022 CES in Las Vegas, nothing has changed.

We’re living in a communications revolution,
bringing about changes that will be both
permanent and irreversible.
Revolutions never maintain or preserve the status quo.

This article originally appeared on Dick’s blog, DickTaylorBlog, where you can find more of his musings.

Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.

The post Why I Stream ALL My Radio Listening appeared first on Radio World.

In this document, the Commission updates the political programming and recordkeeping rules for broadcast licensees, cable television system operators, Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) service providers, and Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (SDARS) licensees. The revisions conform the political programming and recordkeeping rules with statutory requirements, reflect modern campaign practices, and increase transparency.

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re: Actions on Pending Applications

The Media Bureau enters into a Consent Decree with Opus Broadcasting Systems, Inc

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re: Applications Accepted for Filing

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Media Bureau designates as unreserved certain vacant FM allotments that are reserved for noncommercial educational ("NCE") use in various communities

LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Co.‘s fiscal first quarter of 2022 ended on January 1. How did the company do in its first three months of the fiscal year?

As CEO Bob Chapek sees it, “We’ve had a very strong start to the fiscal year.”

Thank Encanto and a rise in streaming portfolio subscriptions for that positive news. While the company’s linear networks saw lackluster results, investors approved of the overall results.

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He’s been with Beasley Media Group for the past 26 years and presently serves as the VP of Brand Strategies in addition to his role as a regional Operations Manager for two of the company’s radio markets.

Tee Gentry isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

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A peculiar thing is happening to drivers of some Mazda’s operating in and around the Seattle area, and it could be caused by images displayed on dashboard screens.

Car owners are reporting their car radios are locking on 94.9 MHz leaving them unable to change the tuner. The only models affected are 2014–2017 Mazdas equipped with factory-installed HD Radios.

KUOW(FM) in Seattle, the NPR station that operates on 94.9 MHz, says it is hoping Mazda or Xperi can help. The radio station confirmed Tuesday on its website it is aware of the issue and has received complaints.

Mazda drivers have been complaining of the issue for several weeks, according to reviews of Reddit threads.

Some commenters on the discussion forum say the infotainment systems are “either locked up or constantly rebooting” and inevitably locking up on 94.9 MHz. Some drivers also have complained on the discussion board about not being able to make calls using the infotainment systems while driving.

[Read More Top News Stories from Radio World Here]

KUOW shared with Radio World a statement provided by Mazda after its dealerships in the Seattle area began receiving complaints from frustrated drivers about the problem.

“Between 1/24–1/31, a radio station in the Seattle area sent image files with no extension, which caused an issue on some 2014–2017 Mazda vehicles with older software. Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) has distributed service alerts advising dealers of the issue.”

Mazda continued: “While dealers are currently experiencing parts delays due to shipping constraints, MNAO will support impacted customers with replacement parts. These customers should contact their local Mazda dealer who can submit a goodwill request to the Mazda Warranty department on their behalf, order the parts, and schedule a free repair when the parts arrive.”

A KUOW spokesperson said the HD Radio system in the vehicles “pulls images from an NPR tool and uses the KUOW logo when there is nothing from NPR to use.” It’s unclear how widespread the problem is, according to the radio station.

Xperi, the developer of HD Radio, said its “assessment is that there was a formatting issue with the transmitted data.”

The company’s statement continued: “We have worked with the station to address it, and we do not believe there are any ongoing issues with car radios in the market.”

Some Mazda owners posting on Reddit theorize the images with no extensions likely corrupted lines of code in Mazda infotainment systems. “We have not received any information from Mazda on which specific file they believe triggered the issue,” the radio station spokesperson said.

Here is the statement KUOW posted on its website earlier this week:

“KUOW is aware of an apparent issue between our signal and some Mazda infotainment systems, causing radios to reboot when they connect to KUOW’s 94.9 FM signal. We have been in contact with Xperi, the company who owns the technology behind HD Radio, and have given them complete access to our transmitters to investigate what is causing this issue.

“Our operations team is doing everything they can to support them in finding a quick resolution. We also appreciate the assistance of listeners who helped alert KUOW to this issue and have provided additional information to aid the investigation.”

The post Radio Mystery for Some Seattle Mazda Owners appeared first on Radio World.

Updated at 12:50pm PT to include a comment from Xperi Corp.

On Sunday, January 30, an owner of a 2016 Mazda hatchback was driving in Ballard, Wash., when his in-dash entertainment system suddenly went awry. For some strange reason, the HD Radio his vehicle was equipped with would only play the main NPR member station for the Seattle-Tacoma market.

This driver wasn’t the only to experience the exact same problem. Is the glitch something every station equipped with the Xperi Corp.-owned product needs to be concerned about?

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Deadlines have been set to file comments in the latest NPRM from the Federal Communications Commission concerning emergency alerting.

As we’ve reported, the commission has a notice of proposed rulemaking that it says would improve the clarity and accessibility of visual Emergency Alert System messages to the public, particularly to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. In a companion NOI, the commission asks questions about broader measures to enhance the Emergency Alert System’s overall functionality and accessibility.

The NPRM presents proposals for modifying the text associated with national EAS messages, including pre-stored templates for NPT messages, and it proposes requiring “triggered” CAP polling.

The NOI asks, among many other questions, whether it would make sense to use legacy EAS only for the Emergency Action Notification (EAN) and NPT, but require use of CAP for all other alerts, and if legacy EAS can’t be reasonably modified to allow alert originators to distribute text to transcribe a two-minute audio message, whether the legacy EAS architecture should be redesigned altogether.

You can read Radio World’s recent story about the NPRM and NOI.

Now the deadlines are set. Comments on the NPRM are due March 11, and replies are due March 28. Comments on the NOI are due April 11 and replies by May 10.

Read the full proposal at https://tinyurl.com/rw-eas-4. File comments to the FCC at www.fcc.gov/ecfs/. To read others, enter 15-94 in the “Specify Proceeding” field.

The post Deadlines Are Set to Comment on EAS Changes appeared first on Radio World.