福克斯公司 (FOXA) 2027财年第一季度业绩电话会：营收增长22%，EBITDA增长54%

核心要点

• 福克斯公司（Fox Corporation）2027财年第一季度营收同比增长22%至46亿美元，当季EBITDA增长54%，达到创纪录的16.4亿美元。
• 广告收入增长47%，主要受2026年国际足联男足世界杯、中期选举政治广告投放增加以及Tubi的持续增长推动。
• 分销收入增长9%。由于联播平台费率提高和FOX One弥补了传统付费电视订阅用户下滑的压力，有线电视分销收入增长10%。
• Tubi收入增长35%，用户参与度增长23%。管理层表示，进入第二季度后，收入增长依然强劲，EBITDA势头保持积极。
• 调整后每股收益（EPS）从1.51美元增长68%至2.54美元。自由现金流为5.03亿美元，部分反映了世界杯版权费支付和广告收款的时间节点差异。
• 在整个中期选举周期中，福克斯旗下各平台的政治广告收入超过3.5亿美元，其中地方电视台超过2.5亿美元，Tubi以及全国性体育、新闻与娱乐频道各贡献约5000万美元。

关键财务数据

业务与运营表现

体育与广告

2026年国际足联男足世界杯是广告收入增长的主要推动力，同时得到了早期中期选举政治广告支出和Tubi的支撑。管理层表示，世界杯决赛成为了美国电视史上观影人数最多的足球转播。

福克斯的《America’s Game of the Week》平均收视人数接近2500万，位居电视收视榜首。公司还表示，世界大赛（World Series）单场比赛收入表现强劲。

更高的体育版权费和制作成本导致总费用增加了10%。管理层表示，将以审慎严谨的态度评估2030年和2034年世界杯的版权。

FOX One与分销

FOX One的用户数和参与度继续超出管理层预期。9月份的新增订阅用户数与上个橄榄球赛季初相比增长了30%以上。

管理层表示，约97%的FOX One新订阅用户没有有线电视订阅，因此这绝大部分构成了福克斯现有用户群体的净增量。算上FOX One，公司在过去12个月内实现了订阅用户的正增长。

第三方分销渠道的订阅用户下滑率改善至6%以下。有线电视分销收入增长10%，而电视分销收入增长4%。

Tubi

在参与度增长23%的推动下，Tubi收入同比增长35%。内容驱动因素包括其内容库、世界杯专区、10部全新原创作品以及来自600多名创作者的内容。

Tubi在中期选举周期内还产生了约5000万美元的定向政治广告收入。管理层表示，该平台提升了其对EBITDA的贡献，并在第二财季继续表现出强劲的收入增长势头。

分部业绩

有线电视业务分部营收增长8%，EBITDA增长7%。广告收入增长8%，分销收入增长10%，内容及其他收入增长1%。由于体育版权、制作和新闻节目制作成本增加，分部费用增长10%。

电视业务分部营收增长32%，EBITDA增长134%。受世界杯和政治广告支出的推动，广告收入大涨60%。分部费用增长8%，主要是由于世界杯相关体育成本以及Tubi内容支出的增加。

福克斯新闻与政治广告

福克斯新闻（FOX News）在当季继续保持收视率最高的有线新闻网地位，在黄金时段和全天收视份额上均领先于有线新闻竞争对手。管理层承认，面对上年同期异常强劲的新闻周期，收视率承受了一定压力，并指出这是由于观众审美疲劳，而非观众流失至竞争对手的新闻频道。

有线数字新闻广告收入同比下降。管理层称数字广告市场竞争激烈，同时指出福克斯新闻数字版（FOX News Digital）仍是美国领先的数字新闻网站。

管理层业绩指引

• 福克斯预计全年股份回购金额将保持在历史区间内，并计划在2027财年第二季度重启股票回购。管理层表示，这一决定与与Roku交易的预估完成时间无关。
• 管理层表示，进入当前季度后，Tubi的收入增长依然强劲，EBITDA势头保持积极。
• 福克斯预计FOX One的订阅用户规模将随着体育赛季日程而波动。管理层警告称，该服务可能无法在每个时期都能抵消传统订阅用户的流失。
• 福克斯收购Roku的交易已获得所需的股东及外国监管机构批准。公司正与美国司法部合作获取HSR反垄断审查批准，并预计将尽快完成交易。

风险与关注重点

• 随着重大体育赛季的开启和结束，FOX One的订阅可能呈现季节性特征。
• 政治广告为第一财季带来了显著收益，使得选举周期的节点与强度成为影响广告收入同比对比的重要因素。
• 世界杯及其他体育节目推高了版权费、制作成本和内容成本。
• 在前一年新闻周期异常活跃之后，福克斯新闻面临着高基数下的收视率对比困难以及观众审美疲劳问题。
• 收购Roku的交易仍需获得美国HSR反垄断审查批准，因此交割时间线取决于监管审批流程。

分析师问答要点

分析师关注的焦点在于FOX One能否支持长期的分销增长。管理层强调，该服务主要吸引的是非有线电视的增量用户，但也提醒称体育赛事带来的季节性可能会引发波动。

在广告方面，管理层重点提到了超过3.5亿美元的政治广告收入，并表示福克斯新闻的广告千人成本（CPM）仍有提升空间，以进一步缩小与广播电视网的差距。

关于Tubi的提问集中在增长与盈利能力的可持续性上。管理层指出了持续的收入势头、每千小时观看收入的提高以及EBITDA的同比增长。

关于资本配置，首席财务官史蒂文·汤姆西奇（Steven Tomsic）表示，计划重启股票回购不应被解读为透露Roku交易节点时间的信号。

业绩电话会议完整文字记录

完整财报电话会议逐字稿

管理层陈述

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.

分析师问答

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.