Cable and satellite distribution fee revenue continued to comprise the bulk of Fox Corporation’s income during the company’s first financial quarter of its 2025 fiscal year (Q1 2025, coincides with calendar Q3 2024).
On Monday, Fox revealed its affiliate fee revenue comprised $1.843 billion of its $3.56 billion in overall income during Q1, compared to a healthy advertising income of $1.329 billion during the quarter. Net income was $832 million for the quarter, the company said.
Broken down by segment, revenue attributed to Fox’s flagship television network, sports programming and streaming service Tubi clocked in at $1.953 billion, while cable network programming — which includes the Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and two Fox Sports-branded channels, as well as fees related to carriage on pay TV platforms — came in at $1.597 billion during Q1.
Component and segment revenues were all up on a year-over basis, and most had increased on a sequential basis.
The company was boosted in large part due to healthy political advertising spend across Tubi and its broadcast and cable networks, Fox Chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on Monday.
“Fiscal 2025 is off to a solid start across our portfolio with strong audience growth at FOX News, record political advertising across the company, accelerating revenue growth at Tubi and a compelling start to our fall sports calendar,” Murdoch said in a statement. “Collectively these contributions have combined to deliver particularly strong financial results in our fiscal first quarter, led by notable top line revenue and earnings growth. Our strategy and our focus are delivering for our audiences, advertising and distribution partners, and the Fox shareholders.”
On the programming side, Fox News scored the highest ratings with its simulcast of the ABC News presidential debate and CBS News vice presidential debate of any cable network, and its viewership for both events was highly competitive against broadcast networks as well. It also scored high ratings from its exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, and led all cable networks with overall and key demographic ratings during Q1.
On the broadcast network side, Fox’s viewership and advertising revenue were boosted by its broadcast of key soccer tournaments — namely, the UEFA European Championship and CONMEBOL Copa América — as well as the start of the National Football League’s (NFL) regular season. Fox shares NFL telecast rights on Sunday afternoons with Paramount’s CBS, but does not offer its football games on its own streaming platforms, instead choosing to relegate those games to broadcast TV and via pay TV distribution on cable, satellite and cable-like streaming services.
The choice to relegate Fox network and sports programming to pay TV helped the company earn $806 million in affiliate fees from cable and satellite partners during Q1, up from $735 million reported during Q1 2024. Cable TV affiliate revenue from the news and sports channels came in at $1.037 billion, up from $1 billion reported during the same quarter last year.
Broadcast TV advertising increased 11 percent to $1.008 billion, spurred by higher political advertising uptake against Fox-owned television stations and Tubi, the company said. Ad spend was also healthy against the soccer tournament and NFL games, Fox affirmed. Cable network advertising increased by the same 11 percent to $321 million, boosted by higher political uptake against Fox News Media-owned properties and partially offset by commercial-free breaking news coverage on the cable news channels.
Shares of Fox Corporation’s Class A stock were trading 4.7 percent higher as of 10:45 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday.
