Fox touts growth at Tubi and Fox Nation in Q3

Fox heaped praise on its streaming services—the ad-supported Tubi and subscription Fox Nation—during its fiscal first quarter earnings call.

CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Tubi will generate “significantly more revenue” this year than its acquisition cost—Fox bought Tubi for $440 million in 2020—after more than doubling its revenues. He also said that total viewing time was up 30% compared to the same quarter of 2020. Fox reported 900 million hours during the previous quarter.

When pressed for total active user numbers on Tubi, Murdoch said marketing for new users through digital acquisition tools can result in rapid user growth but called it a “losing strategy” if the users are not engaged on the platform.

“[Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi] and the team are very scientific and very experienced in balancing the new users that they acquire versus the quality of those users and how engaged they are. And it is really why the total viewing time, which includes new viewers coming onto the platform, really remains the best metric. Because it includes all viewers as well as a measure of engagement,” he said.

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Fox’s advertising revenues increased 17% during the quarter, which it attributed in part to Tubi. Murdoch said that early investments in original content have been paying off for the platform. Two of the four original films released by Tubi this year have already generated ad revenues higher than their production costs.

During the call, Fox also spent some time updating investors on Fox Nation, which serves as a complementary service to the Fox News Channel. The company said Fox Nation’s total subscriber count was up 25% quarter over quarter up 130% up year over year, but it didn’t provide a specific subscriber count.

Fox reported total quarterly revenues of $3.05 billion, up 12% year over year. However, quarterly net income declined from $1.12 billion to $708 million, largely due to the absence of a $462 million cash reimbursement received last year from Disney relating to Disney’s acquisition of certain Fox assets.