Fox Corp. revenue jumped 22% last quarter to $4.57 billion, well ahead of expectations, driven by a 47% surge in ad sales due to the current year broadcast of the FIFA Men’s World Cup, higher political advertising revenue, and continued digital growth led by Tubi.
Distribution revenue grew 9%, driven by 10% growth at Cable Network Programming and 4% growth at Television.
Q1 profits also beat forecasts at $957 million, up from $609 million the year earlier. EPS was $2.20 vs $1.32. Adjusted EBITDA jumped 54% to $1.64 billion.
Fox stock popped more than 5% premarket on the upbeat numbers.
Watch on Deadline
The company’s fiscal year ends in June.
“Fox has had an outstanding start to fiscal 2027 with first-quarter records for revenue and adjusted EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] underpinned by robust growth in both advertising and distribution revenue,” said CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
“We commenced the year with the stellar performance of the FIFA Men’s World Cup, the kickoff of the college football and NFL seasons, and an active election cycle at the national and local levels. These events supported strong contributions from across the company, reflecting the focused strategy we are executing and the strength of our content and brands. These record results coupled with the strong momentum we are continuing to see across our business gives us confidence in delivering value for shareholders in a thoughtful and disciplined manner,” he said.
Analysts are eager to hear more about Roku, with Fox in the midst of closing that $22 billion cash and stock acquisition announced last June. Shareholders of both companies approved the deal last month. It’s moving through the regulatory process and has been expected to close on the early side of calendar 2027.
On a post-earnings call today said, Murdoch said Fox is cooperating wirh the DOJ and that “we’ll close the deal as soon as we can.” Otherwise execs declined to take questions on Roku, which will be reporting earnings itself after the bell Monday, with no call.
A major development is the pending Fox-Roku merger. Wall Street is extremely bullish deal, anticipating significant revenue and cost synergies and a path to “fundamentally changing the company’s strategic and fundamental narrative,” one analyst said recently — i.e. “a credible path to transition its predominately linear portfolio toward DTC, addressing the company’s most significant weakness.”
More to come