Fox Banks $600M On Super Bowl

Fox Corp. took in about $600 million in advertising revenue for its coverage of Super Bowl LIV and pregame and postgame activities, The Wall Street Journal reports Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch said Wednesday.

On a call with analysts to discuss the company’s quarterly results, Murdoch said it was a record day for Fox. Sunday’s game averaged 99.9 million viewers on the Fox television network and an additional three million watched online and on Fox’ Spanish-language sports channel.

Viewership for the National Football League championship game was up from last year’s presentation by CBS, but short of the record 114.4 million viewers of NBC’s 2015 telecast.

Conversations about renewing Fox’s NFL deals for Sunday and Thursday football have begun, said Murdoch, who also serves as Fox’s executive chairman. Both deals expire at the end of the 2022 season. He said the company is “in a good place to work with them” on a new deal.

Fox on Wednesday reported that revenue for its fiscal second quarter, which ended Dec. 31, rose 5% from a year earlier to $3.78 billion, helped by higher affiliate fees.

Murdoch spent much of the call talking about the strength of Fox News, which continues to dominate cable-news ratings—although its advertising revenue was down slightly in the latest quarter. The company attributed the advertising decline to pre-emptions of regular programming for breaking news and not to advertiser boycotts targeting the network’s prime-time opinion lineup.

Fox News is seeing an expansion of advertisers, Murdoch said, particularly in the finance and technology sectors. He also said many advertisers are coming to Fox News to reach viewers outside of the big markets. “There is a growing sense in the market that if you want to reach middle America there is no better place to place your brand and advertising on Fox News,” he said.

Murdoch also told analysts that he anticipates significant political ad revenue at the company’s media platforms, especially its local stations, in this election year.

Fox’s $3.78 billion in revenue surpassed analyst expectations of $3.64 billion. Affiliate fees rose 7% in the quarter compared with a year earlier, while advertising revenue was up about 1%.

Profit jumped to $300 million, or 48 cents a share, from $8 million, or one cent a share, a year earlier.