Reconciliation of Income Tax Provision (Benefit) (Detail) (USD $) In Thousands, unless otherwise specified	12 Months Ended
Feb. 28, 2015	Feb. 28, 2014	Feb. 28, 2013
Income Tax Disclosure [Abstract]
Federal statutory tax rate	35.00%	35.00%	35.00%
Computed income tax (benefit) provision at 35%	$ (20,663)	$ 5,110	$ (3,109)
State income tax (benefit) provision	9,517	(8,857)	(2,082)
Foreign taxes	120	737	639
Tax benefit resulting from swap expiration and related OCI reversal	5	0	0
Allocation of tax benefit from discontinued operations	0	0	(3,007)
Nondeductible stock compensation and Section 162 disallowance	122	55	127
Entertainment disallowance	421	455	430
Change in valuation allowance	50,250	(31,059)	6,966
Tax attributed to noncontrolling interest	(1,994)	(1,793)	(1,561)
Section 165(g) worthless stock deduction	0	0	(5,746)
Alternative minimum tax	0	0	(529)
Taxable dividend from foreign subsidiary	(173)emms_ForeignEarningsTaxableAsDividend	0emms_ForeignEarningsTaxableAsDividend	0emms_ForeignEarningsTaxableAsDividend
Other	(657)	1,289	833
(Benefit) provision for income taxes	$ 36,948us-gaap_IncomeTaxExpenseBenefit	$ (34,063)us-gaap_IncomeTaxExpenseBenefit	$ (7,039)us-gaap_IncomeTaxExpenseBenefit

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Percentage of domestic federal statutory tax rate applicable to pretax income (loss).

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Amount of current income tax expense (benefit) and deferred income tax expense (benefit) pertaining to continuing operations.

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