Fox Corp., led by executive chair and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, reported improved fiscal fiscal-quarter financials on Thursday as advertising revenue fell 2 percent in the period ended Sept. 31, but affiliate revenue rose 2 percent. “Other” revenue also improved by 2 percent.
The company reported quarterly earnings of $415 million, compared with a year-ago profit of $613 million. Adjusted earnings fell to $537 million, or 1.09 per share, dropped from $670 million, or $1.21 a share, in the year-ago quarter.
Fox reported total quarterly revenue that climbed slightly over the year-ago period to hit $3.21 billion. Affiliate fee revenues rose, driven by 8 percent growth at the television segment, and advertising revenues also decreased.
Said Lachlan Murdoch in a statement that accompanied his latest financial results: “Our fiscal 2024 is off to a solid start against a backdrop of an active news cycle and robust sports schedule. Live content matters and nobody does live better than Fox.”
On the advertising front, Lachlan Murdoch during on a morning analyst call said Fox Corp. was coming through the soft advertising market, especially in entertainment, better than rivals with a focus on sports and news. “We hear, and understand, that the advertising market appears to be mixed, or unsettled. However, we are not seeing that to the same extent due to our focus on sports and news. With sports, we’re seeing high demand around our NFL and college football schedule,” he argued.
He added on the streaming front that Tubi led rival ad-supported streamers like Max, Paramount+ and Peacock in viewing time. “Going forward, we’ll see continued growth in view time. There’s softness in the entertainment advertising market, and Tubi isn’t immune from that softness,” Murdoch said, as the company looked to double down on monetizing the streamer’s growing audience base.
The earnings update was the first since media mogul Rupert Murdoch announced in September that he would be stepping down as the chairman of Fox and News Corp in November, serving instead of chairman emeritus.
Lachlan Murdoch paid tribute to his father for his seven-decade career in media. “I can assure you that he is still very much involved and will continue to be for years to come,” his son told analysts, which echoed an internal memo to Fox Corp. employees where Rupert Murdoch said he would remain “involved every day in the contest of ideas” going forward.
Lachlan Murdoch also addressed the company’s decision to pass on renewing the Friday night WWE SmackDown series, which will leave Fox and jump to USA Network, beginning in October 2024.
“On an advertising point of view, we were not hitting the advertising numbers for the audience of WWE to return on our investment, and we didn’t attribute enough significant retransmission revenue to the WWE. The ROI did not meet our disciplined parameters, so we wished them luck and we’ve moved on from them,” he said.
Lachlan Murdoch added Fox Corp. was continuing with contract renewal talks with NASCAR, where the return on investment was “exceeding our expectations from an ROI point of view.”
He also talked about the recently-struck new carriage deal between Walt Disney Co. and Charter Communications, which is expected to have an impact on negotiations between content producers and distributors elsewhere in the industry.
“It’s a net positive for us. We want our distributors to do well. We want them to continue to invest in high quality programming and high quality brands. Between Fox News and Fox Sports, our station group and our network, we have a very focused, very valuable set of programs that distributors such as Charter value. So net-net, the Disney-Charter deal is positive for us and positive for our strategy,” Lachlan Murdoch told analysts.
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November 02, 2023 at 08:18PM
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Rupert Murdoch “Still Very Much Involved” at Fox Corp. Despite Title Change, Lachlan Says - Hollywood Reporter
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