The numbers
$5.18 billion—Fox revenue for fiscal second quarter, a $104 million increase.
1%—Ad revenue increase due to higher sports and news pricing, Tubi growth, and MLB postseason, despite a difficult comparison to a record political cycle last year.
47%—Fox News ad scatter pricing increased year over year.
$247 million—Net income in the quarter, down from $388 million in the prior year, with the company saying expenses were primarily due to higher sports programming rights amortization and production costs, and higher digital marketing costs.
The watercooler talk
Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch was effusive about the company’s second quarter during an earnings call on Wednesday. According to Murdoch, despite the challenges of a record-breaking political cycle last year, Fox News Media reported its highest ad revenue in history for the first half of the year, adding 200 new advertisers. Meanwhile, Tubi had the highest quarterly, daily, and weekly ad revenue in its history. On Fox Sports, the NFL had the highest revenue for its Sunday offering and the highest ad revenue for an NFC Championship Game. Plus, the MLB had its highest postseason revenue thanks to a seven-game World Series.
Still, rising sports rights costs were on analysts’ minds during the call, with the NFL looking to renegotiate its deals as soon as this year. Murdoch noted that the company views its sports business as a whole and could rebalance the portfolio if needed, but is comfortable where it is. In the meantime, Murdoch also touted the strength of the upcoming World Cup, which he said will be profitable for Fox.
The key quote
“Without speculating, we have the ability to offset a portion of any kind of cost increases, because we look at our sports portfolio as a whole. We would certainly consider balancing or rebalancing our portfolio as we move forward when those opportunities become available. We feel pretty comfortable for the sports business.” — Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corp. CEO, on potential NFL renegotiation
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