Fox's disciplined FAST strategy makes it best media stock.
Fox has been the most disciplined media company, avoiding the streaming arms race and focusing on cash-generating assets like Tubi. The Fox–Roku deal gives it vertical integration (channel, box, software, data, advertising) in the high-growth free ad-supported television (FAST) space, taking it out of costly programming and subscriber-acquisition battles. This focus has made Fox the absolute best performing media stock.
Comcast is not throwing in the towel by spinning off NBCUniversal; it is creating three focused companies with different competitive dynamics, growth profiles, and economics. The simplification allows the core connectivity business to make needed capital investments and offer a bundle of home connectivity, cable, and mobile services, while NBCUniversal becomes a pure growth business anchored by an unbelievably strong sports destination. This focus and separation can unlock value.
AI companies are spending over $700 billion on capital and have realized that content is a critical foundational asset, especially information and news. The days of scraping the web are over, so they will do licensing deals with content companies. News Corp already did a deal with Meta, and many more such deals are expected, benefiting information and content companies.