フォックス・コーポレーション (FOXA) 2027年度第1四半期決算説明会：売上高22%増、EBITDA 54%増

主要なポイント

• フォックス・コーポレーションの2027年度第1四半期売上高は前年同期比22%増の46億ドルとなり、四半期EBITDAは同54%増の16億4,000万ドルと過去最高を記録しました。
• 広告売上高は、2026年FIFA男子ワールドカップ、中間選挙向けの政治広告の増加、およびTubiの継続的な成長が牽引し、47%増加しました。
• 配信売上高は9%増加しました。アフィリエイト料率の引き上げとFOX Oneが、従来の有料テレビ加入者減少による圧力を相殺し、ケーブル配信売上高は10%増加しました。
• Tubiの売上高は35%増加し、エンゲージメントは23%増加しました。経営陣によると、売上高の伸びは第2四半期に入っても堅調を維持しており、EBITDAの成長モメンタムもプラスを維持しています。
• 調整後EPSは前年同期の1.51ドルから68%増の2.54ドルとなりました。フリーキャッシュフローは5億300万ドルとなり、ワールドカップの放映権料支払いや広告費回収のタイミングなどが一部反映されました。
• 中間選挙サイクルにおけるFOXポートフォリオ全体の政治広告収入は3億5,000万ドルを超え、これにはローカル局での2億5,000万ドル以上、ならびにTubiおよび全国規模のスポーツ・ニュース・エンターテインメント部門での各約5,000万ドルが含まれます。

主要財務データ

事業および業績の動向

スポーツおよび広告

2026年FIFA男子ワールドカップが広告成長の主因であり、中間選挙向けの早期の政治広告支出やTubiがこれを後押ししました。経営陣によると、ワールドカップ決勝は全米テレビ史上最も視聴されたサッカー中継となりました。

FOXの「America’s Game of the Week」の平均視聴者数は約2,500万人に達し、全テレビ番組の中で最も視聴された番組となりました。同社はまた、ワールドシリーズの1試合あたりの売上高も堅調であったと述べています。

スポーツ放映権料と制作費の上昇が総費用の10%増加につながりました。経営陣は、2030年および2034年のワールドカップの放映権について、規律ある態度で評価を行っていくと述べています。

FOX Oneおよび配信

FOX Oneは、ユーザー数およびエンゲージメントの両面で経営陣の予想を上回り続けています。9月の新規加入者獲得数は、前のアメリカンフットボールシーズン開幕時と比較して30%以上増加しました。

経営陣によると、FOX Oneの新規加入者の約97%はケーブルテレビの契約をしておらず、FOXの既存の顧客基盤に対して実質的に純増となっています。FOX Oneを含めると、同社は直近12か月間でプラスの加入者成長を記録しました。

サードパーティ配信事業者経由での加入者減少率は6%未満に改善しました。ケーブルテレビ配信売上高は10%増加し、テレビ配信売上高は4%増加しました。

Tubi

Tubiの売上高は前年同期比で35%増加し、23%のエンゲージメント成長がこれを支えました。コンテンツ面では、ライブラリ作品、ワールドカップ特設ハブ、10本の新作オリジナル作品、および600人以上のクリエイターによるコンテンツが成長を牽引しました。

Tubiはまた、中間選挙サイクル中に約5,000万ドルのターゲット型政治広告収入を上げました。経営陣は、同プラットフォームのEBITDA貢献度が高まり、2027年度第2四半期においても力強い売上モメンタムを示し続けていると述べました。

セグメント別業績

ケーブルセグメントの売上高は8%増加し、EBITDAは7%増加しました。広告売上高は8%増加、配信売上高は10%増加、コンテンツおよびその他の売上高は1%増加しました。スポーツ放映権料、制作費、ニュース番組制作費により、セグメント費用は10%増加しました。

テレビセグメントの売上高は32%増加し、EBITDAは134%増加しました。ワールドカップと政治広告支出に牽引され、広告売上高は60%増加しました。ワールドカップ関連のスポーツ費用やTubiのコンテンツ支出増加を主因として、セグメント費用は8%増加しました。

FOXニュースと政治広告

FOXニュースは当四半期中も最も視聴されたケーブルニュースネットワークとしての地位を維持し、プライムタイムおよび終日の両方で他社ケーブルニュース競合を上回る視聴シェアを維持しました。経営陣は、前年同期のニュースサイクルが非常に強力であったことに対する視聴率低下の圧力を認める一方で、これは競合ニュースチャンネルへの視聴者流出ではなく、視聴者の疲労感が要因であると指摘しました。

ケーブルデジタルのニュース広告収入は前年同期比で減少しました。経営陣はデジタル広告市場の競合が非常に激しいと述べる一方で、FOX News Digitalが全米トップのデジタルニュースサイトの座を維持していることを指摘しました。

経営陣の見通し（ガイダンス）

• FOXは通期の自社株買いが過去のレンジ内に収まると予想しており、2027年度第2四半期中に自社株買いを再開する計画です。経営陣は、この決定はRokuの買収手続きの予想タイミングとは別個のものであると述べました。
• 経営陣は、Tubiの売上高の伸びが当四半期に入っても堅調であり、EBITDAのモメンタムも引き続いてプラスであると述べました。
• FOXは、FOX Oneの加入者基盤がスポーツのカレンダーに応じて変動すると見込んでいます。経営陣は、同サービスがすべての期間において従来の加入者減少を相殺できるとは限らないと注意を促しました。
• FOXはRokuの買収に必要な株主承認および海外規制当局の承認を取得しました。同社はハート・スコット・ロディノ法（HSR法）に基づく事前届出の承認を得るために司法省（DOJ）と協議を進めており、可能な限り速やかに買収を完了させる予定です。

リスクと注目点

• FOX Oneの加入者数は、主要スポーツシーズンの開幕や終了に伴い季節変動を示す可能性があります。
• 政治広告は2027年度第1四半期に大きな利益をもたらしたため、選挙サイクルのタイミングと活況度が広告売上高の比較において重要な要因となります。
• ワールドカップをはじめとするスポーツ番組により、放映権料、制作費、コンテンツ費用が増加しました。
• FOXニュースは、極めて活発であった前年同期のニュースサイクルの反動から、厳しい視聴者数比較と視聴者の疲労感に直面しています。
• Rokuの買収は引き続き米国HSR法に基づく承認待ちであり、買収完了のスケジュールは規制手続きに依存しています。

アナリストQ&Aの要点

アナリストの関心は、FOX Oneが長期的な配信成長を支えられるかどうかに集中しました。経営陣は、同サービスが主にケーブルテレビ未契約者の純増を獲得していることを強調しつつも、スポーツによる季節要因が変動を引き起こす可能性があると注意を促しました。

広告に関しては、経営陣が3億5,000万ドルを超える政治広告収入を強調し、FOXニュースの広告CPMを地上波ネットワークの水準に近づける余地がまだ残されていると述べました。

Tubiに関する質問は、成長と収益性の持続可能性に集中しました。経営陣は、継続的な売上モメンタム、1,000視聴時間あたりの売上高上昇、および前年同期比でのEBITDA成長を挙げました。

資本配分について、最高財務責任者（CFO）のスティーブン・トムシック氏は、計画されている自社株買いの再開をRoku買収のタイミングに関するシグナルと解釈すべきではないと述べました。

決算説明会（トランスクリプト）全文

決算説明会の完全なトランスクリプト

経営陣による説明

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fox Corporation First Quarter Fiscal Year 2027 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I now turn the conference over to Chief Investor Relations Officer, Ms. Gabrielle Brown. Please go ahead, Ms. Brown.

Gabrielle Brown

Thank you, Pauly. Good morning, and welcome to our Fiscal 2027 First quarter earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Lachlan Murdoch, Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer; John Nallen, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Steven Tomsic, our Chief Financial Officer. First, Lachlan and Steve will give some prepared remarks on the most recent quarter, and then we'll take questions from the investment community. Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements regarding Fox Corporation's financial performance and operating results.

These statements are based on management's current expectations, and actual results could differ from what is stated as a result of certain factors identified on today's call and in the company's SEC filings. Additionally, this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EPS and adjusted EBITDA or EBITDA, as we refer to it on this call. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and our SEC filings, which are available on the valuation section of our website. We also refer to free cash flow, which we define as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures.

And with that, I'm pleased to turn the call over Lachlan.

Lachlan Murdoch

Thank you, Gabby, and thank you all for joining us this morning to discuss our fiscal first quarter earnings. Good morning to you all. Our fiscal 2027 is off to an outstanding start. We posted revenue growth of 22% to reach $4.6 and EBITDA growth of 54% to reach $1.6 billion. Both our first quarter records -- both a result of the focused strategy that we are executing on and both reflective of the strength of our content and brands, which are driving consistently exceptional results. Advertising revenue rose 47% in the first quarter, driven by our successful broadcast of the FIFA Men's World Cup and healthy trends across this portfolio, which continue into this current quarter.

Distribution revenue rose 9%, with cable distribution up 10% on increased rates and the strength of FOX One along with a meaningful improvement in industry subscriber trends. In fact, when including the incremental subscribers from FOX One, we saw positive subscriber growth for the trailing 12 months. FOX One launched just over a year ago and has consistently exceeded our expectations for users and engagement. We are encouraged by FOX's One trajectory and are confident in its potential to drive incremental growth in the quarters ahead, notably related to FOX One's momentum in the month of September, subscriber acquisitions increased over 30% versus the start of last year's football season.

And we have seen a very healthy engagement balance by our subscribers between news and sports consumption. Sports as expected, drove a considerable amount of engagement across the entire FOX platform this past quarter. We began the quarter with a historic broadcast of the FIFA Men's World Cup Final, the most watched soccer telecast in U.S. history. This was followed by the start of the Major League Baseball postseason and of course, the opening gins of the National Football League and college football seasons. We just wrapped an exciting World Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Raise, a 5-game series that averaged 12 million viewers and capped an MLB playoff that exceeded our expectations. Per game revenue was robust, which is illustrative of the strength of the sports market.

Looking at the NFL season to date, Fox's Americas game of the week is the #1 show in all of television with an average of nearly 25 million viewers. With plenty of football still to come, we look forward to an NFL triple header on FOX in week 15, a strong Thanksgiving holiday weekend that will feature 1 of College Football's biggest rivalries, Michigan versus Ohio State, and a blockbuster NFL matchup between the Eagles and the Carbores on Thanksgiving Day.

The NFL Thanksgiving day game will also stream live on Tubi, which posted another record quarter. Tubi grew revenue 35% year-on-year, underpinned by a 23% increase in total. Engagement was driven by Tubi's deep content offering including its tremendous library, its World Cup hub, 10 new originals and viral content from more than 600 creators. Fundamental momentum at Tubi continues into the second quarter, supplemented by the recognition of political campaigns of Tubi's large, mostly cordless audience as an ideal destination to invest for this year's midterm cycle on a targeted basis.

More broadly, across our businesses, political advertising has surpassed $350 million, a record for a midterm cycle. This encapsulates the full FOX portfolio working together at scale during one of the biggest news events of the year. As you would expect, audiences have turned the FOX for our comprehensive coverage of this election cycle. With national coverage led by the FOX News team, while our broadcast stations provide essential local perspective, particularly in many battleground states.

Heading into tomorrow's vote more Americans have relied on FOX News than any other news network for coverage of the key issues and news this cycle. While we had difficult ratings comparison to last year, FOX News notably finished the quarter as the most watched cable news network while maintaining audience share levels that are higher than our peers in both prime and total day. These first quarter results underscore the position of financial strength we are approaching the Roku transaction from.

Since the announcement of the Roku acquisition, our confidence in the strategy and our conviction in the opportunity has only grown. Combining Roku's leading streaming platform with our premium sports, news and entertainment content, will build our position in the fastest-growing segments of the media landscape and will deliver both sustained growth for the company and value for our shareholders.

From a process standpoint, we have made significant progress towards closing, including receiving all required FOX and Roku shareholder approvals and foreign regulatory approvals. We are continuing to work cooperatively with the DOJ in order to obtain HSR clearance and expect to close the transaction as soon as we can. After a record fiscal year 2026 and first quarter 2027, fiscal 2027 will once again demonstrate our differentiated strategy the quality of our assets, our ability to deliver both on screen and financially and the strength of our balance sheet, all while creating value for our shareholders in a deliberate and disciplined manner.

I'll now turn you over to Steve to discuss the financials.

Steven Tomsic

Thanks, Lachlan, and good morning, everyone. The strong momentum we saw throughout our fiscal 2026 has continued unabated into the first quarter of fiscal 2027, highlighted by total revenue growth of 22% and record quarterly EBITDA of $1.64 billion. Advertising revenue across the company grew 47%, led by our broadcast of the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup, along with higher political advertising revenue and continued growth of Tubi. Distribution revenue grew 9% over the prior year with growth at both our Cable and Television segments. .

Content and other revenues were broadly in line with prior year, with lower entertainment content revenue, partially offset by higher sports sublicensing revenue. Total expenses increased 10% led by costs associated with the World Cup and higher digital content costs. Net income attributable to stockholders was $943 million or $2.20 per share as compared to the $599 million or $1.32 per share reported in the prior year period. Excluding non-core items, adjusted net income was $1.09 billion and adjusted EPS was $2.54, up 68% compared to the $1.51 recorded in the prior year period.

Now turning to our operating segments. Starting with the Cable segment, which reported an 8% increase in revenue and a 7% increase in EBITDA. Cable advertising revenue was up 8% primarily a result of higher sports advertising revenue, including the broadcast of the World Cup, partially offset by lower digital news advertising revenue. Cable distribution revenue grew 10% driven by pricing growth from our affiliate renewals and a net increase in subscribers.

The subscriber growth reflects the combined benefit of an improving rate of subscriber declines across our third-party distributors, which is now running at below 6%, coupled with a meaningful positive contribution from FOX One. Cable content and other revenue increased 1% driven by higher sports sublicensing revenue. Expenses at the Cable segment increased 10% due to higher sports programming rights and production costs, including the World Cup and high-end news programming costs.

Now turning to our Television segment, which delivered 32% growth in revenue and a 134% increase in EBITDA. Television advertising revenue was up 60%, driven by the World Cup and early midterm political advertising revenue, primarily at our owned and operated television stations. Tubi was once again a highlight, delivering mid-30% revenue growth and growing its year-on-year EBITDA contribution. Television distribution revenue grew 4%, driven by healthy growth in fees across FOX owned and operated stations and a net increase in subscribers.

Television content and other revenue fell 4% as a result of lower content revenues, Qatar entertainment production studios. Expenses at the Television segment increased 8% due to higher sports programming rights amortization and production costs led by our broadcast of the World Cup, along with higher content costs at Tubi. These were partially offset by lower NFL costs associated with the timing of gains. Now turning to cash flow, where free cash flow was positive $503 million in the quarter.

As a reminder, the strong improvement in quarterly free cash flow was in large part due to the timing of working capital related to the World Cup. We are rights payments for the tournament landed in fiscal 2026 while advertising receivables continue to be collected through the first half of fiscal '27. In terms of capital allocation, while we are temporarily inactive with our buyback program in the quarter, we continue to expect full year share repurchases to be in line with our historical range and anticipate returning to share repurchases this quarter. This is all supported by the strength of our balance sheet where we ended the quarter with approximately $4.5 billion in cash and $6.6 billion in debt.

And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Gaby.

Gabrielle Brown

Great. Thanks, Steve. And now we would be happy to take questions from the investment community. Please note that as with our prior earnings call, we do not anticipate taking questions about FOX's pending Roku transaction. We have filed materials with the SEC that provide information about the transaction and for today, we would ask that questions focus on FOX's stand-alone results. .

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, [Operator Instructions] We have a question from Michael Ng of Goldman Sachs.

質疑応答

Michael Ng

I wanted to ask about FOX One and the impact on distribution revenues. Very encouraging to hear about the net positive subscriber growth in the trailing 12 months. What does that tell you and inform how you think about long-term distribution revenue growth? And if you could talk a little bit about the biggest opportunities for FOX One gross ads, especially as we head into the NFL season more firmly, that would be helpful.

Lachlan Murdoch

Thanks, Mike. So look, I think in summary, FOX One has hit it out of park. It's executing on the strategy we laid out for extraordinarily well. The most pleasing aspect of this is the fact that the subscribers are almost entirely incremental to our subscriber base, which is why we can offset -- we have been able to offset in this quarter, traditional subscriber declines with FOX One additions. I think it's something like 97% of new subscribers into FOX One subscribers and of 97% do not have a cable subscription. That's a tremendous result.

And frankly, when we did our strategy and our budgets for FOX One, frankly, I didn't believe that we'd be able to achieve that, but it's really the result of being very focused, being very careful in our marketing, understanding that a subscriber from the pay TV system into FOX One doesn't do us any favors. And so we've been, I think, remarkably focus on achieving that result and the team has done a tremendous job.

Having said that, as you move forward, the FOX One subscriber base is going to be somewhat seasonal with sports seasons coming and going. So I would just sort of press sort of modest note of caution that as we move forward, is FOX One always going to be able to plants the subscriber losses in the traditional ecosystem, probably not as seasons sports seasons come and go. So I'll just add that one small note of caution.

Gabrielle Brown

Next question please.

Operator

We have a question from John Hodulik of UBS.

John Hodulik

Maybe just a couple of quick questions on the advertising side. First of all, can you give us an update on your efforts to sort of close the CPMs on the broadcast side or are used with what you're seeing in the broadcast market. And then you guys seem to have booked the trend with Tubi in terms of revenue growth, given what we've seen from YouTube and Netflix Any comments, long on what you're seeing in terms of the health of the CTV ad market. .

Lachlan Murdoch

So overall, advertising trends for us, and I can't talk to the market, but are incredibly healthy really across our portfolio. It's always a point in time, every couple of years, you've got to be careful to understand the strength of the political cycle. This has clearly been a dramatically positive sort of political revenue cycle across the board and where the beneficiary of a lot of that.

I think I mentioned it before, but it's now over $350 million in political revenue throughout the cycle. That breaks down into sort of $250 million plus on the local stations, what tends to happen in locations you run out of availability. So that pushes some of the base market side -- in the -- during that cycle, but it's an incredibly positive number. We then have about $50 million of Tubi revenue throughout the cycle, which is you can allocate that as sort of as effectively local revenue because it is targeted.

And another -- and this is another fanatic number of $50 million plus of national political advertising revenue that sits across sports, news and entertainment. So that's tremendously strong. In terms of CPMs, bridging the gap between FOX News and broadcast, we still have a tremendous amount of upside and room to go. As you know, the strength of FOX News, we do compete more broadcast networks as opposed to our news -- our cable news peer, so you can't really call them peers, but our cable news competitors. And we have tremendous upside in terms of continuing, of course, our CPMs into the broadcast CPM range.

And then on Tubi, our revenue growth, as we've said it before on calls, the Tubi business, really driven by TBT growth continues to be very strong. That's for a number of reasons that you all know. It's based around the fact that such a large percentage of them while they're young, they're diverse, and they are -- the majority of them are cordless. They're very hard market for advertisers to reach and which is one of the reasons why Tubi's been so successful in garnering that advertising revenue. The pleasing thing is that we're seeing this growth continue into the current quarter. And so Tubi continues to go from strength.

Gabrielle Brown

Next question please.

Operator

We have a question from Michael Morris of Guggenheim.

Michael Morris

I wanted to ask, Nielsen has reported some ratings declines at FOX News ahead of the midterm elections. I'm hoping that you can share your thoughts on why this may be the case. What it means for the ad revenue trend. As well as any strategic or content changes you might consider or make going forward, is the FOX One viewing? Is that accurately included in the Nielsen ratings as well? And if I could just ask 1 second 1 on bundling of FOX One, John recently said that bundles had only had a modest impact from Fox for Fox, I'm wondering why these bundles haven't been impactful and what you might need to see to strike a deeper distribution agreement with a large streaming platform.

Lachlan Murdoch

Thanks, Michael. So let me start with the FOX One ratings. So again, we finished the year and congratulate everyone perhaps FOX news, or the sportbook News ratings. We've finished the year incredibly strong. Number one, with more share than our 2 cable competitors combined. So we've -- the business is in incredibly good shape, and we're very proud of the team. What we are seeing though is some viewer fatigue, where our viewers are -- I've gone to some incredible news cycle the last few years.

I think the last year was a record really hard to -- hard comps for us to comp against with the inauguration, the Charlie Kirk and tragedy dose. I think the flooding. It was a tremendous new cycle this time last year, which we're comping against. But having said that, we are seeing some viewer fatigue, which we've seen before. It's this cycle is analogous not entirely, but somewhat analogous to the 2006 midterms when you have a second term present going into their midterm taper through the second term, and you just see this bureau fatigue.

Those viewers are not going to any other news channel. They're not switching to MMS -- now or to CNN. There is fatigue and watching slightly less slightest television overall. So we feel pretty confident where we are, and we've seen this playbook and we know how to move through it. FOXOne bundling FOX One will bundle with all sorts of distributors and platforms and other comproviders. It's in its infancy of FOX One. And so you'll see we'll roll out further bundles as the service develops.

Gabrielle Brown

Next question please.

Operator

We have a question from Jessica Reif Ehrlich of Bank of America.

Jessica Reif Cohen

Two quick questions. First on when I remember, I don't know if it was a year or 2 ago, but to be reps like mid-teens growth, you said something like -- I don't think it's sustainable or don't expect it to be sustainable. Now we're 30% -plus revenue growth, and I think you just said that's continuing in the current quarter. What can you say about like the margin outlook for Tubi anything where it is now, where you think it can go -- and then I think Steve just said that buybacks will resume in the current quarter. Does that -- what does that say about the timing of the -- does that say something about the timing of the Roku close did you say it was on told until it closes?

Lachlan Murdoch

So thank you for proving on Tubi. I don't I don't remember saying that, but I'm sure I did, if you said it. And look, it's been it's been doing tremendously well. Our PPD continues to grow. Obviously, a ton of work has gone into that. And as I said, -- we're seeing that growth continue into this current quarter. So -- but thank you for calling me out on that one. And margins, we think -- I think we mine think it will be sort of range margin business once it reaches our further maturity.

Steven Tomsic

And to reinforce that point, Jessica Tubi had a nice amount of EBITDA growth this quarter versus last. So continuing on that. well and truly positive EBITDA momentum. On the buyback, you shouldn't draw that linkage between us or restarting the buyback and our expected timing for the transaction to close their 2 separate decisions.

Gabrielle Brown

We have time for one more question. .

Operator

We have a final question from David Karnovsky of JPMorgan.

David Karnovsky

Maybe just following up on the advertising question. The release called out lower year-on-year revenue for cable digital news. I just wanted to see if you could unpack that a bit how your platforms are operating amid a kind of difficult web traffic environment generally? And then just separately, given the success of the World Cup on FOX, right, how are you thinking about rights for the 2030 cycle where I think FIFA is looking to sell English and Spanish language on a combined package.

Lachlan Murdoch

Thanks, David, and welcome. On to digital, as you be aware, FOX News Digital is the #1 digital news site in America. The -- from a revenue perspective, I think it's a hypercompetitive market. And we're very pleased with the results there. On the World Cup, I think the question was will we be bidding for World Cup rights. We're obviously happy with the performance of the World Cup this past year. And we'll be looking at the rights for 2030 and 2034 in a disciplined manner as we would with all sports rights.

Gabrielle Brown

Great. At this point, we are out of time. But if you have any further questions, please give me or Charlie a call. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Lachlan Murdoch

Thank you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the Fox Corporation First Quarter Fiscal Year 2027 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you.