FOX SALES, PROFIT SURGE; COMPANY PLANS NEW STREAMING SERVICE
(Bloomberg) -- Fox Corp. shares rose as much as 6.9% to their highest level in almost six years after quarterly sales and earnings beat Wall Street forecasts, in part, on higher political ad spending. The company also revealed plans to launch a new streaming service before the end of the year.
The media conglomerate controlled by the Murdoch family reported sales of $5.1 billion for its second fiscal quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of $4.8 billion. Profit, at 96 cents per share after adjustments, surpassed Wall Street’s expectations of 64 cents per share for the period ending in December.
Fox News saw strong ratings around the 2024 presidential election in November and was the most-watched channel on election night as nearly 10.3 million people tuned in to the network’s coverage of President Donald Trump’s victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris. Chief Executive Officer Lachlan Murdoch said on the company’s earnings call that Fox saw record political ad revenue of $400 million during the first half of fiscal 2025.
He also said that the company plans to launch a new streaming platform before the end of the year that will package together Fox’s existing content and brands. “We are designing an offering to really target those cord-cutters and cord-nevers that are not traditionally in the cable bundle,” he said.
Shares were up 4.3% to $54.16 at 10:17 a.m. in New York.
Fox had been a partner on Venu, a sports streaming joint-venture with Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. The service was scrapped last month after its launch was delayed amid legal concerns that the offering was monopolistic.
“In the end, the legal distractions around the business became increasingly difficult to bear,” Murdoch said.
The company’s sports division also experienced a ratings boon from the World Series in October. An average of 15.8 million people tuned in each night to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in a five-game series, marking the championship’s highest ratings since 2017.
Fox is set to air the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, and will stream the showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs on its free-to-watch Tubi streaming service. The company saw Super Bowl ad prices rise to a record of over $8 million each.
Still, traditional networks have faced challenges retaining viewers as many consumers cancel cable TV in favor of streaming. Fox News has also lost some of its on-air talent to positions in Trump’s administration, including ex-anchor Pete Hegseth, who was confirmed as US Defense secretary in January.
Fox is also facing $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic Corp. The voting technology company alleges that Fox News guests and hosts falsely claimed in 2020 that Smartmatic rigged the 2020 presidential election against Trump. A judge declined Fox’s motion to dismiss the case in January. Fox agreed to pay $788 million in 2023 to settle a similar suit by Dominion Voting Systems Inc.
(Updates with plans for new streaming service, rise in share price and comments from the company’s CEO)
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2025-02-04T13:40:23Z
