NAB CBCD prep — 8 weeks out, how to divide study time across the domains
I'm 8 weeks out from the NAB Certified Broadcast Content Director exam and trying to figure out how to split my time. The exam blueprint shows four domains but the weighting is pretty uneven — Content Acquisition is 35% and I've been spending most of my time on digital distribution instead.
My background is about 6 years in production but I've never sat for a formal cert. I work primarily in news, so sports rights and syndication licensing feel pretty foreign. I've been doing about 90 minutes/day and scored 61% on a diagnostic mock last week, which is below the passing threshold I've seen referenced at around 70-72%.
Anyone who's taken this recently — how scenario-heavy is it? I keep seeing conflicting info on whether it's mostly recall-based or whether you need to work through multi-step licensing scenarios. The study guide is vague on that point.
Also curious about the digital distribution domain specifically. Streaming rights, geo-blocking, metadata standards — is that tested at a deep technical level or more conceptual?
Six years in news is solid background but you're right that syndication licensing is its own world. I'd find a decent primer on music licensing in broadcast specifically — ASCAP/BMI sync vs blanket license questions came up more than I expected.
The digital distribution section on mine was more conceptual than technical. They didn't ask me to configure anything — it was more about knowing what format is appropriate for what use case and why.
Content acquisition is definitely the domain to nail. I spent 3 weeks just on that section and I think it saved me — ended up scoring around 74% overall. The scenario questions are real and you need to know FCC regs well enough to apply them, not just recite them.
Failed my first attempt, came back to this thread for motivation. The advice about really understanding why wrong answers are wrong — not just memorizing the right ones — is the single best piece of advice I've seen for the NAB. Rebuilding my prep around that principle now. Using national association of broadcasters certification for the concept review.
For anyone finding this thread later: the NAB is passable with consistent effort, even working full time. I studied 40 minutes a day for 13 weeks. The nab quality control & process improvement kept me honest about where my gaps were instead of just drilling things I already knew.