Fox Corporation says a strong interest in its streaming video service Tubi and increased ratings at its cable news offerings helped generate more than $3 billion in revenue during its most-recent financial quarter.
On Wednesday, the company said higher ratings and advertisement interest at Fox News Media and Fox Sports helped generate 7 percent more revenue this quarter compared to last year.
Executives said its advertising revenue could have been higher if its news networks did not have to pre-empt coverage for breaking news and other events. Fox News Media includes the Fox News Channel, the Fox Business Network, Fox Weather and the streaming service Fox Nation.
A return to normalcy among the sports that Fox carries helped offset some ad break interruptions on the news side of the portfolio, and the company said it saw a strong interest among the local and cable channels that carry its sports programming.
The free, ad-supported service Tubi saw a 34 percent increase in monthly active users, Fox executives said, though the company didn’t disclose a precise number. In its previous quarter, Fox said Tubi had 51 million monthly active users.
Growth at Tubi was associated to an increase in the amount of licensed and original content available on the platform, as well as the addition of more than two dozen linear streaming channels, nearly all of which contain advertisements.
On Wednesday, Fox said Tubi now had more than 45,000 television shows and movies available to viewers in the markets where the streaming service operates, which includes more than a dozen original shows that were created exclusively for the service.
“We will continue to invest judiciously in Tubi with our sights set on achieving $1 billion in revenue run rates in the next couple of years,” Lachlan Murdoch, Fox Corporation’s chief executive officer, said on a conference call with investors.
Murdoch acknowledged reports of a possible slowdown in spending among companies that advertise on traditional and digital video networks, but said Fox was “not seeing any adverse advertising impact on our business.”
To the contrary, Fox believes it will be flush with political ad dollars as the midterm election cycle continues over the next few months.
“We are seeing an unprecedented wave of political spending, which accelerates as we head toward November,” Murdoch said.
