Fox Corporation (NASDAQ:FOX) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

John Hodulik: Great. Morning everyone. First can we just get an update on the affiliate renewal process? I think you guys had said that it would be more weighted on the TV side but I think a lot of the new agreements kick in in January. So, just any color on the trends we should see there. And then getting back to the Charter Disney renewal, you guys seem to be somewhat unique in that you don’t really have any long-tail networks or I would say a major SVOD platform. Lockwood you talked about Fox Nation but it’s obviously very different than what we’re seeing in the rest of the industry. Just any thoughts on the implications for Fox is this model that we’ve seen out of this renewal and it would be broadly adopted over time for the industry?

Lachlan Murdoch: Thanks John. On affiliate renewal, let me start with the big picture and Steve can talk to any of the numbers going forward or not depending on — but look the main thing on affiliate renewal is we — really due to our focus strategy our focus on our core brands. Also I think our focus on being good partners with our distributors and wanting their businesses to succeed because frankly from a FOX perspective the Cable bundle Cable distribution or Pay TV distribution remains our largest and really the most important revenue stream. And that we believe that it will remain our largest for years to come. So, we are — we feel the success of our distribution partners is our success as well. We want them to succeed and we want them to do well which is one reason why we’ve kept our premium content within the cable bundle.

We are not interested in at this stage moving premium content away from our cable distribution partners. That would be I think a mistake for us and for them. And so due to that, since our last call a quarter ago, we have renewed a number of distribution contracts. And in every case, we’ve been rewarded by that focus, rewarded by our partnerships, with our affiliate partners, our distribution partners, with our rate increases and distribution agreements that are — that fit absolutely in line with our plan. And that’s because they value our brands. They value Fox News. They value Fox Sports. And obviously our local stations and networks. So we are very pleased with our pace of renewals. And we haven’t seen any changes to the way we’re able to work constructively with our partners.

And that goes to the second part of your question with Charter and Disney. It’s hard for me to say how — I don’t want to talk about other people — a lot of people are — have their earnings calls next week. I think we’re early in the media cycle. They can talk about how that renewal affects them and particularly the entertainment channels for us, because we’re not in that space. I think it’s a net positive. We like to see our partners focus on the core brands the core brands where all the audiences and frankly where the leverage is in terms of retransmission and less so on channels that might not be as popular. So Steve, do you want to…

Steve Tomsic: Yeah. So John just to reinforce Lachlan’s point, we had — just over third of our distribution renewals due this fiscal year and we’re virtually through all of that. So that’s — and as Lachlan mentioned, we’ve achieved our pricing objectives against those renewals which goes to a, the fact that we haven’t gone back with any distributors and the fact that we’ve been able to achieve objectives. And assuming the distributors are also happy those renewals. It goes to a constructive relationship. We have with those distributors. And so listen, we negotiate our full portfolio as a bundle. And I think you should expect to see that coming into the new calendar year you’ll see the impact of those renewals and I suspect that the benefit of those will be skewed towards the Television segment but you should also expect to see some progress on the cable side in the new calendar year, I should say.

Gabrielle Brown: Operator, we have time for one more question.

Operator: Thank you. The next question will come from the line of Phil Cusick from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.