As Fox Corp. reported quarterly earnings Wednesday, CEO Lachlan Murdoch said the Fox One streamer continues to exceed the company’s expectations and believes that it can be a leading platform not only for live sports, but news as well.
For the company's fiscal year 2026 second quarter, Fox reported a 2% year-over-year increase in revenue to $5.18 billion, on the back of 4% distribution growth attributed to cable networks and an uptick in ad revenue. Quarterly adjusted EBITDA of $692 million declined compared to $781 million in the same period a year ago, as higher expenses more than offset revenue growth.
Total ad revenue rose 1% yoy to $2.46 billion, attributed to higher prices for sports and news, digital growth at the Tubi AVOD and additional postseason MLB games, partially offset by lower political advertising and ratings compared to the prior year period.
Fox’s television segment Q2 revenue declined slightly to $2.94 billion compared to $2.96 billion a year ago. The cable networks business, which includes Fox News, Fox Sports and Fox Business, recorded revenue of $2.28 billion, up 5% yoy.
Within the cable network segment, distribution revenue increased $54 million, with contractual price increases partially offset by subscriber declines.
Despite continued consumer exits from the pay TV ecosystem, Murdoch on the earnings call said subscriber declines notably improved sequentially (around 6.3% decline) even when excluding contributions from the Fox One streamer, and where recent introductions of skinny bundles by various distributors could be helping to stem declines.
As for Fox One, launched less than six months ago in late August the direct-to-consumer streaming product brings together Fox’s linear channels such as FS1, FS2, Fox Deportes, the Big Ten Network, Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News and Fox Business.
Without sharing subscriber figures so far, Murdoch said the streamer “continues to exceed our expectations, driven by both direct signups as well as partnerships.”
With Fox still seeing some success in the traditional pay TV ecosystem, it is targeting a market of cord-cutters and cord-nevers with Fox One.
On Wednesday, Murdoch affirmed that as a result of targeted marketing to this cohort, so far the company hasn’t seen “any noticeable cannibalization of traditional subscribers.”
The company still only expects to attract low-to-mid single-digit millions of subscribers for Fox One over the next 3-4 years and is “well on track to hit those benchmarks.”
According to Murdoch, Fox is encouraged by early consumer reception to the streamer and has been able to glean meaningful insights about audience engagement.
Live sports events continue to drive the majority of engagement with Fox One, with about two-thirds of the audience representing sports fans that have come to the platform for that purpose first. But according to Murdoch news programming accounts for about one-third of total minutes viewed on the streamer.
And those viewers are engaging longer and more often.
“Notably, news viewers engaged with the platform twice as many days per week as non-news viewers and watching it nearly 3x as many minutes per week on average,” Murdoch said. “These patterns reinforce our view that Fox One is not only the premier destination for live sports, but also the leading platform for timely, relevant live news streaming.”
The CEO also went on to tout that on the digital side Fox News Digital saw social media views in the quarter grow 170% yoy, while Fox News and Fox Business ranked No. 1 in YouTube video views among their peers in the quarter.
Engagement with Fox news content on social, and younger generations' affinity for short-form and social video, were part of the influences in building out the Fox One user experience and belief it could serve as a vehicle for engaging untapped viewers with news content as well as sports.
At launch last August, Fox One’s Pete Distad had pointed to social video and YouTube views generated by Fox news content, saying “this demonstrates our extensive reach outside of linear television and really shows we’ve got this untapped audience that is viewing this content, and it’s ripe for a platform like Fox One.”
Product-wise, that includes a vertical video short-form feature called Shorts on the mobile experience, which Fox One SVP of Product Amit Dudakia previously told StreamTV Insider is meant to appeal to younger audiences and consumption habits by offering aggregated clips – bringing together not only sports highlights but news and analysis commentary as well.
As Fox News seeks to engage another generation on digital channels, Murdoch said the company is focused “on expanding our podcast content and talent across Fox News and the broader Fox platform, supporting our strategy to meet our audiences wherever they are.”
And in a separate effort to tap into younger audiences and on different platforms from its traditional pay TV channels, Fox’s free streamer Tubi in the quarter also saw strengthened engagement.
Per Murdoch, fiscal Q2 was Tubi’s “most streamed quarter of all time”, with total view time growing 27% year-over-year – although didn’t disclose a figure for hours of viewing attached to that growth. But increased view time was driven by an expanded content slate, including the NFL Thanksgiving game that was simulcast.
Tubi’s engagement growth was the strongest in seven quarters, he noted, and continues to be powered by on-demand viewing which accounts for over 95% of consumption on the AVOD.
That uptick in viewing translated to a boost in revenue for Tubi, which was up 19% in the quarter. Tubi also achieved EBITDA profitability for the second quarter in a row, according to the CEO.
“Meaningful audience engagement is a consistent and enduring theme across our results, highlighting Fox's unique cultural position, ensuring that we constantly and deeply connect with fans across our brands is at the forefront of our strategy,” Murdoch said.
In calendar 2025, total minutes viewed across Fox’s Sports, News, Entertainment and Tubi properties increased 15% yoy, which Murdoch held up as an example of the strategy in action.