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Foxs (FOXA) News Digital Ranks Number One in the Third Quarter

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Fox Corporation (FOXA - Free Report) recently announced that FOX News Digital finished the third quarter of 2022 as the top-performing news organization in the competitive set in multiplatform minutes and views, according to Comscore.

It delivered over 8.5 billion total multiplatform minutes, over 4.3 billion total multiplatform views, and averaged 80 million monthly unique multiplatform visitors. FOX News Digital remained the most engaged brand on social media in the competitive set for the quarter, with 46 million interactions on Meta Platform’s (META - Free Report) Facebook, 46.3 million interactions on Instagram and 11.9 million interactions on Twitter.

FOX News also placed first with YouTube video views among news brands for the 5th straight quarter (20th consecutive month), garnering over 848 million video views.

Fox News has been the driving engine for Fox Corporation as it usually attracts more prime-time audiences than its rivals and is competitive with the more widely distributed broadcast networks as well.

What is Aiding Growth at Fox?

The Fox News Channel (“FNC”) has been benefiting from Fox Nation as it increased FNC’s subscriber base by approximately 80% in fiscal 2022. The conversion rate of trialists to paid subscribers has been high and retention rates were above industry averages.

The Cable Network Programming segment, which generates 44% of Fox’s revenues, witnessed 7% year-over-year growth as affiliate and advertising fees increased.

The increase in advertising revenues was primarily due to higher pricing at FOX News Media and an increase in the number of live events at the national sports networks.
 

Fox’s growing user base is not only driven by Fox News but also by Fox Business, which drove 151 million multiplatform views as of August. Fox Business surpassed CNN Business and Comcast’s (CMCSA - Free Report) MSNBC in multiplatform views for the fifth straight month.

Comcast’s MSNBC lost 19% of its prime-time viewers in the first half of 2022. Per Nielsen data, its ratings have plummeted ever since The Rachel Maddow show shifted to a once-per-week format from four times per week.

Fox’s investment in Flutter has benefited its sports business division as well. Together they entered into a national media and sports wagering partnership in the United States. The partnership offers the FOX Bet Super 6 national free-to-play game, which has generated a user base of more than 6 million registered accounts as of June 2022.

What Lies Ahead for Fox?

This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company’s shares have declined 21.4% year to date compared with the Zacks Consumer & Discretionary Sector, which fell by 41.7%.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

However, Fox’s cable TV business faces a serious threat from OTT platforms due to cord-cutting and changing consumer preferences. This does not bode well for Fox.

The company also faces competition for ad dollars, which forms its main source of revenue. This is intensified by offerings from tech giants like Facebook, Google, YouTube and Amazon, as they too have been fighting for ad dollars. Meta benefits from increasing mobile ad revenues and growing adoption of stories by advertisers across Instagram.

The recent news of Fox being merged with News Corporation (NWSA - Free Report) has also not been well accepted by investors as the latter faces headwinds from the print-advertising model getting redundant. A major portion of News Corporation’s total revenues, which are generated outside the United States, can hurt the company’s top and bottom lines due to the ongoing foreign exchange fluctuation or the U.S. dollar gaining strength.

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