福斯公司 (FOXA) 2027 會計年度第一季法說會：營收成長 22%，EBITDA 成長 54%

重點摘要

• Fox Corporation 2027 財年第一季營收年增 22% 至 46 億美元，單季 EBITDA 則成長 54% 至創紀錄的 16.4 億美元。
• 廣告營收成長 47%，主要受 2026 年 FIFA 男子世界盃、期中選舉政治廣告增加以及 Tubi 的持續成長所帶動。
• 分銷營收成長 9%。有線電視分銷營收成長 10%，主因更高的附屬頻道費率與 FOX One 抵銷了傳統付費電視訂閱戶下滑的壓力。
• Tubi 營收成長 35%，用戶參與度成長 23%。管理層表示，進入第二季後營收成長依然強勁，且 EBITDA 保持正向動能。
• 調整後每股盈餘 (EPS) 從 1.51 美元成長 68% 至 2.54 美元。自由現金流為 5.03 億美元，部分反映了世界盃轉播權支付與廣告款項收取的時程安排。
• FOX 旗下各平台在期中選舉期間的政治廣告收入超過 3.5 億美元，其中包括地方電視台的 2.5 億美元以上，以及 Tubi 和全國性體育、新聞與娛樂頻道各約 5,000 萬美元。

關鍵財務數據

業務與營運表現

體育與廣告

2026 年 FIFA 男子世界盃是廣告成長的主要貢獻來源，並受到早期期中選舉政治支出與 Tubi 的支持。管理層表示，世界盃決賽成為美國電視史上收視率最高的足球賽事轉播。

FOX 的《America’s Game of the Week》平均吸引近 2,500 萬觀看人數，名列電視收視率最高的節目。該公司亦表示，世界大賽每場比賽的營收表現強勁。

較高的體育轉播權與製作成本導致總費用增加 10%。管理層表示將以審慎紀律評估 2030 年與 2034 年世界盃的轉播權。

FOX One 與分銷

FOX One 在用戶數與參與度方面持續超出管理層預期。9 月份的新增訂閱戶數相較於上一美式足球賽季開局成長了 30% 以上。

管理層指出，FOX One 的新訂閱戶中約有 97% 未訂閱有線電視，這使得他們很大程度上成為 FOX 現有用戶群的純增量。若計入 FOX One，該公司在過去 12 個月中錄得正向的訂閱戶成長。

第三方分銷商的訂閱戶下滑率改善至 6% 以下。有線電視分銷營收成長 10%，而電視分銷營收成長 4%。

Tubi

在參與度成長 23% 的支持下，Tubi 營收年增 35%。內容驅動因素包括其片庫、世界盃專區、10 部新原創作品以及來自 600 多位創作者的內容。

Tubi 在期中選舉期間也產生了約 5,000 萬美元的精準政治廣告收入。管理層表示，該平台提升了對 EBITDA 的貢獻，並在第二財季繼續展現強勁的營收動能。

部門業績

有線電視部門營收成長 8%，EBITDA 成長 7%。廣告營收成長 8%，分銷營收成長 10%，內容及其他營收成長 1%。由於體育轉播權、製作與新聞節目成本增加，部門費用上升 10%。

電視部門營收成長 32%，而 EBITDA 大增 134%。受世界盃與政治支出帶動，廣告營收攀升 60%。部門費用增加 8%，主要因世界盃相關體育成本以及 Tubi 內容支出增加。

FOX News 與政治廣告

FOX News 在本季仍是收視率最高的有線新聞網，且在黃金時段與全天收視率上，收視份額均維持高於有線新聞競爭對手的水平。管理層承認，面對前一年特別強勁的新聞週期帶來了收視率壓力，並歸因於觀眾疲勞而非觀眾轉移至競爭新聞頻道。

有線數位新聞廣告年減。管理層形容數位廣告市場競爭非常激烈，同時指出 FOX News Digital 仍是美國領先的數位新聞網站。

管理層指引

• FOX 預期全年股票回購將保持在歷史範圍內，並計劃在 2027 財年第二季重啟庫藏股回購。管理層表示，此決定與收購 Roku 交易預期的時間點無關。
• 管理層表示，進入本季度後，Tubi 的營收成長保持強勁，且 EBITDA 延續正向動能。
• FOX 預計 FOX One 的訂閱戶基數將隨體育賽季更迭而波動。管理層提醒，該服務可能無法在每個季度都抵銷傳統訂閱戶的流失。
• FOX 已獲得收購 Roku 所需的股東和外國監管機構批准。該公司正與美國司法部合作以取得 HSR 審查許可，並期望儘快完成交易。

風險與關注焦點

• 隨著重大體育賽季開打與結束，FOX One 的訂閱可能具季節性。
• 政治廣告在第一財季帶來了顯著的收益，使得選舉週期的時間點與力道成為廣告基期比較的關鍵因素。
• 世界盃及其他體育節目推高了轉播權、製作和內容成本。
• 在經歷前一年異常活躍的新聞週期後，FOX News 面臨高收視基期比較與觀眾疲勞。
• 收購 Roku 仍需取得美國 HSR 審查許可，因此完成交易的時間點取決於監管程序。

分析師問答重點

分析師關注 FOX One 能否支撐長期分銷成長。管理層強調，該服務主要吸引非有線電視的增量訂閱戶，但提醒體育賽事帶來的季節性可能會造成波動。

在廣告方面，管理層強調了超過 3.5 億美元的政治廣告收入，並表示 FOX News 的廣告 CPM 仍有向廣播電視網水平靠攏的拉近空間。

有關 Tubi 的提問集中在成長與獲利能力的可持續性上。管理層指出其營收動能持續、每千小時觀看時間的營收上升，以及 EBITDA 實現年成長。

關於資本配置，財務長 Steven Tomsic 表示，計劃重啟庫藏股回購不應被解讀為有關收購 Roku 交易時程的訊號。

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管理層陳述

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.

分析師問答

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.