Record ad revenue across sports and news despite tough comps
Fox Corporation reported a strong fiscal Q2 2026, driven by record advertising revenue in sports and news. The company highlighted robust demand across its portfolio, success with Fox One streaming service, and a positive outlook into the second half of the fiscal year. Management expressed confidence in its strategy focused on live sports and news. Total company advertising revenue grew 1% despite tough political comps, with cable advertising up 7% on strong pricing.
Buzzberg readRecord ad revenue across sports and news despite tough compsFox Corporation reported a strong fiscal Q2 2026, driven by record advertising revenue in sports and news. The company highlighted robust demand across its portfolio, success with Fox One streaming service, and a positive outlook into the second half of the fiscal year. Management expressed confidence in its strategy focused on live sports and news. Total company advertising revenue grew 1% despite tough political comps, with cable advertising up 7% on strong pricing.Read full analysisCollapse analysis
Fox Corporation reported a strong fiscal Q2 2026, driven by record advertising revenue in sports and news. The company highlighted robust demand across its portfolio, success with Fox One streaming service, and a positive outlook into the second half of the fiscal year. Management expressed confidence in its strategy focused on live sports and news. Total company advertising revenue grew 1% despite tough political comps, with cable advertising up 7% on strong pricing.
Fox One, the company's streaming service, is exceeding expectations, with news accounting for one-third of total minutes viewed.
Tubi achieved its most streamed quarter, with 27% total view time growth and its second consecutive quarter of EBITDA profitability.
Management is bullish on the upcoming political advertising cycle, expecting to be the primary beneficiary in national political ad spend on Fox News.
Revenue$5.182B
reported
EPS$0.82
reported
Gross margin22.91%
reported
Op margin11.42%
reported
What changed this quarter
01
Demand
Record ad revenue across sports and news despite tough comps
Management emphasizes strong momentum, record ad revenue, and robust advertising market, expressing confidence in strategic direction and growth.
02
Streaming
FOX1 exceeds expectations with no cannibalization of traditional subs
Total company advertising revenue grew 1% despite tough political comps, with cable advertising up 7% on strong pricing.
03
Pricing
News scatter pricing up 46-47% year-over-year
Fox One, the company's streaming service, is exceeding expectations, with news accounting for one-third of total minutes viewed.
04
Profitability
Tubi achieves second consecutive quarter of EBITDA profitability
Tubi achieved its most streamed quarter, with 27% total view time growth and its second consecutive quarter of EBITDA profitability.
Demand
Demand
Bookings & conversion
Record ad revenue across sports and news despite tough comps. Management emphasizes strong momentum, record ad revenue, and robust advertising market, expressing confidence in strategic direction and growth.
Tone · Confident
Management emphasizes strong momentum, record ad revenue, and robust advertising market, expressing confidence in strategic direction and growth.
Supply-chain alpha
A1
Fox News is on track to be the primary beneficiary of national political advertising in the upcoming election cycle, citing its leading position among all three political parties.
“we would expect to be the primary beneficiary of that at Fox News. And why do we expect to be the primary beneficiary? Because Fox News is not only the number one news source for Republicans and conservatives, but it's also the number one,…”
Fox's focus on the 'big bundle' and its position within emerging skinny bundles provides downside protection, as distributors pay for the entire bouquet of channels regardless of consumer packaging.
“As we sell to our distributors our entire bouquet of channels, we are not impacted by whether they choose to offer a sports bundle or a news bundle... So we do have that downside protection when it comes to how skinny bundles are offered.”
Fox News' advertising pricing power is exceptional, with scatter pricing up ~46-47% year-on-year, indicating strong demand and high value for its live news audience.
Fox is seeing a meaningful shift in advertiser demand towards its live sports and news platforms, with 8 of the top 10 advertising categories showing significant growth, while traditional entertainment advertising remains weak.
“you know, eight of the top 10 categories are significantly up. We've had significant demand for the A of the top categories. Leading that is financial, which is obviously really led by the insurance companies.”
Fox views YouTube's push to retain the core bundle as positive, reinforcing the value of its linear channels in the broader ecosystem.
“we should just say that we are a fan of the bundle, of the core bundle. We think consumers and sort of our consumers want to enjoy all of our content and enjoy all of our brands.”
Good morning, everyone. Can I just follow up on the skinny bundles? We've talked about this for many years and waiting for these launches. The upcoming launch with YouTube TV's Sports Pack, depending on how aggressively they price it, I'm curious if you can talk specifically about the Fox News economics, which I don't think is included in that specific package. And if there is a trade down from other pay TV subscribers who might only want sports, are there protections in place that you were just kind of referencing to limit that downside? And then on the sports betting side, just curious your updated thoughts on the prediction market, whether this is a new opportunity to license or how you…
Thanks, Robert. So on Skinny Bundles, as I said, we are a net beneficiary of Skinny Bundles. The short answer to your question is yes. As we sell to our distributors our entire bouquet of channels, we are not impacted by whether they choose to offer a sports bundle or a news bundle or another type of bundle. They acquire our channels as a bundle, and then they have flexibility in terms of how they market them to their consumers. So we do have that downside protection when it comes to how skinny bundles are offered as each distributor chooses to uniquely offer them to their customer base. I should just say that we are a fan of the bundle, of the core bundle. We think consumers and sort of our consumers want to enjoy all of our content and enjoy all of our brands. And that's why we have number one sports brand and the number one news brand in the market. So I should note that YouTube post this football season is offering a discounted bundle for all traditional channels. So before they launch their sports pack, they're actually offering a bundle including news, including sports and other channels to retain their customers. We're a big fan of the big bundle. Obviously, YouTube and others are big fans of the big bundle. But when ultimately these skinny bundles roll out, we think we're a net beneficiary of them. In terms of sports betting and prediction markets, I should preface this with saying that we continue to be big fans of Flutter and FanDuel. Our 2.5% of Flutter is worth about $700 million. And our option, if you look at these average sort of buy side valuation of our option of 18.6% in FanDuel remains worth about $2.1 billion. If you take the two of those together, $2.8 billion, that's worth about $6 to $7 per share on our share price, which we don't think is reflected today. So we're big fans of sports wagering, particularly Flutter and FanDuel, and we're watching the prediction markets growth with interest. It is an opportunity for us in terms of advertising and sort of deals with these emerging prediction markets, and I think over time you'll see Revenue flowing to us from an advertising significant revenue flowing us from an advertising perspective from these clients.
Fox is seeing a meaningful shift in advertiser demand towards its live sports and news platforms, with 8 of the top 10 advertising categories showing significant growth, while traditional entertainment advertising remains weak. — This reinforces Fox's strategic pivot to live content as a primary driver of ad revenue growth, highlighting a structural advantage over entertainment-focused peers.
“we would expect to be the primary beneficiary of that at Fox News. And why do we expect to be the primary beneficiary? Because Fox News is not only the number one news source for Republicans and conservatives, but it's also the number one,”
Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. It looks like cable advertising is really the standout. Can we talk a little bit about that first on the news side? Are you guys closing the gap in terms of CPMs with broadcasting? And how should we expect that to move forward as the comps get easier as we move into the midterm elections? That's on the news side. For sports, any color there in terms of pricing? And how should we think of how you guys look at profitability of the World Cup this year versus what you've had in the past, given it's in the U.S.? Thanks.
Hey, good morning, John. Thank you. Good to hear your voice. First on cable advertising, the news, I wouldn't say the news advertising market, but certainly the advertising market for Fox News has been incredibly robust. This half, we've added about 200 new advertisers. And you have to remember, that's on top of the 350 new advertisers that we added last year. So the demand for the product and the demand for the audience remains incredibly strong. That's also reflected in our scatter pricing for news, which is up sort of an embarrassing 46% or 47% year-on-year. We don't compare scatter pricing in news to the upfront because news doesn't have traditionally large upfront, so we compare it sort of on year-on-year pricing. So scatter pricing is very strong. Direct response pricing is strong, and we couldn't be more pleased with the performance of advertising sales at Fox News. Moving forward into the political cycle, we expect that's only a positive for us. We expect a robust political advertising cycle. Of course, we benefit from that primarily at our local station group, but if you'll remember from the last political cycle, news has started to see a growing appetite for national political advertising, and we would expect to be the primary beneficiary of that at Fox News. And why do we expect to be the primary beneficiary? Because Fox News is not only the number one news source for Republicans and conservatives, but it's also the number one, has more Democrats and more independence watching Fox News than watching our competitors. So we feel that we're in a very good position going forward into this political cycle. As for the, I think your second question was on the World Cup, will it be profitable? Yes, it will. There's a tremendous excitement around the World Cup by the sponsors and other traditional advertisers. We're looking forward to a great competition and to a sort of robust advertising market on our sports platforms.
Fox News is on track to be the primary beneficiary of national political advertising in the upcoming election cycle, citing its leading position among all three political parties.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. It looks like cable advertising is really the standout. Can we talk a little bit about that first on the news side? Are you guys closing the gap in terms of CPMs with broadcasting? And how should we expect that to move forward as the comps get easier as we move into the midterm elections? That's on the news side. For sports, any color there in terms of pricing? And how should we think of how you guys look at profitability of the World Cup this year versus what you've had in the past, given it's in the U.S.? Thanks.
Hey, good morning, John. Thank you. Good to hear your voice. First on cable advertising, the news, I wouldn't say the news advertising market, but certainly the advertising market for Fox News has been incredibly robust. This half, we've added about 200 new advertisers. And you have to remember, that's on top of the 350 new advertisers that we added last year. So the demand for the product and the demand for the audience remains incredibly strong. That's also reflected in our scatter pricing for news, which is up sort of an embarrassing 46% or 47% year-on-year. We don't compare scatter pricing in news to the upfront because news doesn't have traditionally large upfront, so we compare it sort of on year-on-year pricing. So scatter pricing is very strong. Direct response pricing is strong, and we couldn't be more pleased with the performance of advertising sales at Fox News. Moving forward into the political cycle, we expect that's only a positive for us. We expect a robust political advertising cycle. Of course, we benefit from that primarily at our local station group, but if you'll remember from the last political cycle, news has started to see a growing appetite for national political advertising, and we would expect to be the primary beneficiary of that at Fox News. And why do we expect to be the primary beneficiary? Because Fox News is not only the number one news source for Republicans and conservatives, but it's also the number one, has more Democrats and more independence watching Fox News than watching our competitors. So we feel that we're in a very good position going forward into this political cycle. As for the, I think your second question was on the World Cup, will it be profitable? Yes, it will. There's a tremendous excitement around the World Cup by the sponsors and other traditional advertisers. We're looking forward to a great competition and to a sort of robust advertising market on our sports platforms.
Fox's focus on the 'big bundle' and its position within emerging skinny bundles provides downside protection, as distributors pay for the entire bouquet of channels regardless of consumer packaging.
Fox News' advertising pricing power is exceptional, with scatter pricing up ~46-47% year-on-year, indicating strong demand and high value for its live news audience.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. It looks like cable advertising is really the standout. Can we talk a little bit about that first on the news side? Are you guys closing the gap in terms of CPMs with broadcasting? And how should we expect that to move forward as the comps get easier as we move into the midterm elections? That's on the news side. For sports, any color there in terms of pricing? And how should we think of how you guys look at profitability of the World Cup this year versus what you've had in the past, given it's in the U.S.? Thanks.
Hey, good morning, John. Thank you. Good to hear your voice. First on cable advertising, the news, I wouldn't say the news advertising market, but certainly the advertising market for Fox News has been incredibly robust. This half, we've added about 200 new advertisers. And you have to remember, that's on top of the 350 new advertisers that we added last year. So the demand for the product and the demand for the audience remains incredibly strong. That's also reflected in our scatter pricing for news, which is up sort of an embarrassing 46% or 47% year-on-year. We don't compare scatter pricing in news to the upfront because news doesn't have traditionally large upfront, so we compare it sort of on year-on-year pricing. So scatter pricing is very strong. Direct response pricing is strong, and we couldn't be more pleased with the performance of advertising sales at Fox News. Moving forward into the political cycle, we expect that's only a positive for us. We expect a robust political advertising cycle. Of course, we benefit from that primarily at our local station group, but if you'll remember from the last political cycle, news has started to see a growing appetite for national political advertising, and we would expect to be the primary beneficiary of that at Fox News. And why do we expect to be the primary beneficiary? Because Fox News is not only the number one news source for Republicans and conservatives, but it's also the number one, has more Democrats and more independence watching Fox News than watching our competitors. So we feel that we're in a very good position going forward into this political cycle. As for the, I think your second question was on the World Cup, will it be profitable? Yes, it will. There's a tremendous excitement around the World Cup by the sponsors and other traditional advertisers. We're looking forward to a great competition and to a sort of robust advertising market on our sports platforms.
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