Host Britta Merwin poses in the studio as FOX News Media Launches FOX Weather at Fox News Channel ... [+]
Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch raved to analysts on Wednesday afternoon during the company’s fiscal Q1 2022 earnings presentation that all of the company’s affiliate business units are pretty much on a tear at the moment. And why shouldn’t he? A full live schedule at Fox Sports is finally back. Advertising revenue just topped $1.1 billion. And Fox News, according to the company’s chief executive, is reaching market share levels that are “now at multi-year highs” — to say nothing of the recent launch of the Fox Weather app, which Murdoch said has seen more than 1 million downloads post-launch, with users also spending more than 42 million minutes engaging with the free, ad-supported product during its first week.
Murdoch was also delivering his remarks to analysts shortly after Fox News had blasted out a press release touting its dominance of election night coverage for races including the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests as well as the New York City mayoral race on November 2. Specifically, Fox News Channel saw a 65% audience share in primetime total viewers and a 62% share in the 25-54 age demographic.
Clearly, Murdoch declared, “the fiscal year is off to an excellent start.”
From there, the impression Murdoch tried to leave with analysts is that cable news is Fox’s world, and everyone else is just living in it. All of that came, by the way, amid a presentation of the company’s numbers for the three months that ended September 30 — a period in which Fox Corp reported total quarterly revenue of $3.05 billion, up 12% from the same period in 2020.
Advertising revenue during that period climbed 17% to surpass $1.1 billion, mostly due to continued growth at Fox-owned Tubi as well as the return of a full schedule of live events at Fox Sports and more scripted programming at Fox Entertainment in the current year quarter. Quarterly net income, meanwhile, saw an unfavorable comparison to last year ($708 million, compared to $1.12 billion in 2020) due to a $462 million one-time gain that had been recognized from a cash reimbursement that Disney paid Fox.
Fox TMZ acquisition, and future plans
By way of detailing some of the news-related components of Fox’s operation at the moment, Murdoch teased a little of what’s ahead for TMZ — which Fox bought during the quarter from WarnerMedia for an undisclosed price (although media reports have pegged the deal at coming in under $50 million).
Murdoch said the acquisition gives Fox “an array of possibilities” to quickly expand a brand that’s long been a cornerstone of the company’s local TV stations. The plan, for now, is to bring the TMZ brand to all parts of Fox’s portfolio, he continued, as well as “amplifying TMZ’s digital presence.”
That deal was part of an acquisition binge at the news and entertainment giant, which is diversifying its holdings a bit (though still derives 95% of its pre-tax profits from Fox News).
Fox Weather app
Another high-profile event during the quarter was the launch of Fox’s new Fox Weather AVOD service, another example of the company’s lateral moves over the years that saw it also spin off business coverage, for example, into its own Fox Business Network channel.
Murdoch put some numbers to the launch of the Fox Weather app, which offers 24/7 coverage and is supported by advertising. In addition to those cited above, he added that Fox Weather saw 28 million page views during its first week. And that the app quickly topped the charts, becoming the most-downloaded free app — ahead of even mainstays like YouTube and TikTok.
When the service launched on October 25, Fox promised that it would “change how Americans consume weather news.” To power the service, Fox Weather went on a hiring spree and brought on board meteorologists, anchors, and reporters from around the country. The app also features what Fox has touted as “a cutting-edge 3D radar” and Fox’s FutureView — a tool that lets users plan several months ahead to keep tabs on advanced weather forecasts. Obviously, there’s no way to predict weather with certainty that far out into the future, but this is a way to see longer-term weather trends and to stay up-to-date on the weather as you get closer to an important date in the future — say, if you’re planning a wedding and want to track the weather forecast well ahead of time.
Ratings surge at Fox News
Something else worth a mention is getting to be an old story at this point. But Fox News’ ratings leadership has managed to produce some notable headlines in recent days, including November 2 representing Fox News’ highest-rated “odd year” election night coverage in history.
From the network: “FOX News Channel drew the largest cable news audience in every hour from 7 PM-3 AM/ET during coverage of the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races as well as the New York City mayoral race last night, November 2nd, according to early data from Nielsen Media Research. FNC topped CNN and MSNBC combined in every hour of coverage in total viewers and A25-54, peaking in the 10 PM/ET hour with 5 million viewers and 988,000 in the 25-54 demo tuning into The Ingraham Angle.”
The ratings dominance has extended into the late-night hours, with the already-popular Fox host Greg Gutfeld’s late-night show Gutfeld! that launched in April routinely drawing more viewers than the more-established late-night hosts like Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and even CBS’ Stephen Colbert.
Meantime, Fox also announced in recent days that Fox News Channel’s The Five finished the month of October as the highest-rated show in all of cable news. That marked a first for the 10-year-old show — and is especially noteworthy, given that the program airs outside of the primetime hours. Cable news networks that aren’t Fox News, in other words, are competing for a shrinking share of leftovers in the overall viewership pie.
