Fox Corporation opened fiscal 2027 with a record first quarter. Revenue reached $4.57 billion, up 22% year over year and ahead of the $4.29 billion analyst estimate from Yahoo Finance. Earnings per share came in at $2.20, above the $2.02 estimate. Advertising revenue climbed 47%, powered by the FIFA World Cup, midterm political spending and Fox-owned Tubi.
CEO Lachlan Murdoch called it “an outstanding start to fiscal 2027,” pointing to record revenue and Adjusted EBITDA and what he described as strong momentum across the business.
The beat continues a recent pattern. Last quarter, Fox reported $4.21 billion, up over 18% year over year.
Three engines, one soft spot
Fox’s Television segment did the heavy lifting. Revenue there rose 32% to $2.71 billion, while advertising revenue jumped 60%. Cable Network Programming reported $1.8 billion in revenue, up 8%, helped by distribution gains from contractual price increases and subscriber growth.
- World Cup: lifted sports advertising across Fox’s television business.
- Midterm elections: added a cyclical political ad bump.
- Tubi: continued digital growth; the free streamer now counts 110 million monthly active users.
The soft spot is digital news advertising, which declined in the cable division. Sports demand masked that this quarter; the test will be quarters without a World Cup.
Event revenue has event costs
Higher programming rights and production costs tied to the World Cup pushed Television expenses up, partly offset by lower NFL costs. For buyers and analysts, that is the caveat to the record: event-driven revenue usually arrives with event-sized spending attached.
The Roku deal is the durable story
The bigger strategic signal is free ad-supported streaming, where viewers pay nothing and advertisers fund the content. In mid-October, Fox’s proposed $22 billion Roku acquisition cleared a shareholder vote and now moves toward regulators. Fox wants to pair its live sports and news with Roku’s streaming distribution and technology. Tubi brings 110 million monthly active users; Roku adds more than 100 million streaming households. If the deal closes, Fox becomes a much larger seller of ad-funded streaming inventory.
For media planners, that means treating the World Cup and political cycle as one-time lift, not a new baseline. The structural line to track is Tubi and the pending Roku footprint.
Source: TheWrap
