CAN DISNEY WORK ITS MAGIC IN THE REALM OF RADIO?
Walt Disney Co.’s trademark mouse ears are plastered on everything from videotapes to feature films, from cable channels to Web sites. Now the Magic Kingdom’s marketers are homing in on the oldest of the electronic media — radio. Over the past seven months, the company has quietly inked 13 syndication deals for its new Radio Disney, an AM-band programming network aimed at children and their parents that debuted last August. Children’s radio seems a perfect fit for Disney. Its brand name is nearly invincible among family audiences. Its ABC Radio unit has decades of experience in programming and ad sales. And industry consolidation has opened the door for sweeping format changes at recently purchased stations. The children’s radio market — valued at an estimated $50 million to $100 million in annual ad sales — is also ripe for the taking, with only 35 of some 12,000 radio stations nationwide targeting small fry. Yet the opportunity comes with pitfalls, ones that radio experts say will
