Fox Corporation earned $115 million in net income on around $4.23 billion in revenue during its second fiscal quarter of the year, the company revealed on Wednesday.
Its revenue beat expectations from Wall Street analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research, who had expected around $4.18 billion for the quarter, which aligns with calendar Q4 2023.
Executives affirmed on Wednesday that Fox saw lower advertising revenue during its second fiscal quarter when compared to the same time period last year, in part because that window was boosted by Fox’s telecast of the FIFA 2024 World Cup soccer tournament as well as an uptake in politics-related ad buying during the 2022 midterm election.
This year’s political cycle is proving to be less competitive, with fewer social issues on the ballot commanding the attention of prospective voters and the presidential nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties mostly locked down.
Lower advertising revenue from traditional TV was mostly offset by higher affiliate fees charged to cable and satellite companies for the carriage of Fox-owned broadcast and cable channels, including Fox Sports 1, Fox News and Fox Business Network. Affiliate fee revenue grew 4 percent on a year-over basis to $1.78 billion.
Overall, Fox’s television business earned $2.54 billion during Q2, to include $1.65 billion in advertising revenue that was buoyed by continued uptake in inventory at Fox’s free, ad-supported streaming service Tubi, executives affirmed on Wednesday.
The results briefly caused shares of Fox’s Class A stock to rise around 2.5 percent higher in pre-market trading. Shares of Fox were trading around $27.40, or 6 percent lower compared to the previous day’s closing price, as of 3 p.m., erasing nearly all of Fox’s gains for the year.
