 Alrighty, I feel like that doesn't have the same impact when I do it. Anyways, welcome to Episode 4 of Business Banter with Amusement Insiders. I am your host, Jasmine, and today we have only two topics on the docket. So without hesitation, let's just jump right into the first topic, which today is Disney's fourth quarter earnings report. Now many companies measure their earnings in different what we call fiscal years. Their fiscal year can be from January to December, or it can be shifted by a few months, either forwards or backwards, depending on the business's financial tracking needs. A good example of this is we just actually saw both Six Flags and Cedar Fairs third quarter earnings, and only a few weeks later we're jumping into Disney's fourth quarter earnings. So if you're wondering why some of these companies are only on quarter three and here we're talking about Disney on quarter four, it's because their fiscal year or their accounting year, when it comes to tracking finances, is just shifted slightly based on the business's needs. At the end of the day, they still all track 12 months, it just might be slightly different when they're ending their fiscal year and when they're starting the next one. So with that said, Disney is reporting their fourth quarter earnings with their year ending on September 29th, 2018. So overall, the parks and resorts revenue for the quarter increased 9% up to 5.1 billion. Now this growth was largely due to a number of factors, including an increase in domestic operations, higher guest spending volumes, and also the adverse impact of Hurricane Irma, which negatively affected last year's results in the same quarter. So I'm sure you can imagine how Hurricane Irma must have impacted their results last year with less people visiting the parks, both leading up to the hurricane with all of the warnings during the hurricane and after during the recovery versus this year when they had much more ideal weather. You would see much more results that we would expect from Disney. Now with that said, the operating income at international parts and resorts was comparable to the prior year's quarter. Growth at Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland was a little bit offset by a decrease at Shanghai Disney Resort and looking a little deeper into the reasons for that. The growth at Disneyland Paris was largely due to an increase in average ticket prices while the growth at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort was due to higher occupied room nights as well as attendance growth. And as I mentioned, that was partially offset by the decrease at Shanghai Disney Resort, which was due to lower average ticket prices. And even that was partially offset by higher overall attendance. So you can see how having lower prices generally will reduce the amount of income you're seeing. But if you've reduced the ticket prices but still see more guests, it kind of evens out a little bit. So to just give you a general recap of the overall feel of this webcast, which we will link below in case you want to go and see it for yourself, I personally find all of these reports and webcasts really interesting. Not everybody does. But if you want the full details, click down below. But that said, the chairman and chief executive officer himself, Robert A. Eiger said, quote, we're very pleased with our financial performance in fiscal 2018, delivering record revenue net income and earnings per share. We remain focused on the successful completion and integration of our 21st century Fox acquisition and the further development of our direct to customer business, including the highly anticipated launch of our Disney branded streaming service late next year. So you can see this call was not just specifically about the parks and resorts, but about their business overall. We're talking about the acquisition of Fox here. We're talking about the sort of Disney version of Netflix that's coming out. They're going to have their own online streaming service. So that's all definitely contributing to the overall success that they're reporting in this call. But in this specific video, I'm just focusing more on the parts side of things because there's amusement insiders. So that's what we love. Anyways, with all of that said, I don't want to get too far into the nitty gritty details because I know my previous video about Six Flags got very technical, and I hope that gave you guys a little bit of understanding as far as how to look at these kinds of charts and reports. But just in general, I want to talk about how this kind of success and this kind of positive report just shows once again how the Disney machine is really owning this industry. We can see how they're working to further increase their growth with regular new additions, including the recent opening of Pandora, the world of Avatar, as well as Toy Storyland. And we can expect to see even more growth in the near future with Star Wars Lands opening in both Florida and California in 2019. Disney is a corporation that truly knows how to be successful by combining its resources and being flexible as the economy grows and slows over the years. We've seen this in recent months and even discussed this in recent Business Manager videos with their closures and restructuring of hours of certain attractions, specifically Animal Kingdom, while focusing on growth in other areas of the park. This flexibility in their operations really allows them to capitalize on guest spending patterns and get the most out of their investments in their parks and attractions. So tell me, what do you think of Disney's fourth quarter report and webcast? And how do you feel that there are results compared to the results we've looked at with both Six Flags and Cedar Fair? Who do you think is the current industry leader and why? And do you see that crown being stolen anytime in the near future? As always, let us know your thoughts down below. And with that, I wanna jump straight into our second and final topic of the day. I wanna put a spotlight today on a company called the Producers Group and their new Vice President of Global Business Development. So on last week's episode of Business Banter, we discussed the rebranding of an amusement industry design group called Legacy Entertainment. Well, today we are talking about their big brother of sorts, the Producers Group. Now, these two businesses are not directly linked or related in any way, but I do refer to the Producers Group or TPG as the big brother because they truly are an industry giant. They're much bigger in this area of the amusement and entertainment world. The Producers Group works with some of the very biggest names in the amusement and entertainment industry, including Disney, Universal, and even Dubai parks and resorts. Some of their most recognizable products would include Shanghai Disneyland, Mako at SeaWorld, and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. The Producers Group has just announced the appointment of Michael Turner as the new VP of Global Business Development. According to TPG's CEO, Bob Chambers, quote, in addition to the development of partner relationships for our themed projects, Turner will be key to our growth in the emerging markets for the attractions industry, end quote. Now, this Michael Turner fellow brings over 34 years of industry experience to TPG, so it's really exciting for them. And in general, he's gonna be responsible for the company's global strategic planning and business development. Prior to accepting this position with TPG, Michael was building an impressive resume in the industry, including various positions with IAPA. He was principal of Avante International for quite some time. And before that, he was executive VP of Global Business Development for a similar amusement industry design firm called Cavu Design Works. So it'll be really exciting to see how Michael brings all of this experience to TPG to really expand their portfolio and their global reach going forwards. And I did also just wanna mention with IAPA Expo happening, probably by the time you're watching this video, you'll actually be able to meet Michael at the IAPA Expo. There'll be a booth number 260, and just as a reminder, that will run from November 13th through the 16th of this year, 2018, in case you forget what year you're in. So, as always, I wanna open the floor to your questions and thoughts down below. Did you know about the producers group before now? Did you know that they were involved in some of these gigantic monster amusement industry projects? And what do you think they might be branching out and doing going forwards now that we have someone with such a wealth of experience like Michael Turner at the helm of their global business development? Let me know your thoughts down below. So, with that, I want to wrap up this short and sweet business banter video. As always, let me know your thoughts down below. I would love any suggestions and feedback for future videos. I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you in the next video. Thanks for watching. Bye.