News Corp today released its Fiscal 2024 (FY24) Fourth Quarter (Q4) and Full Year Earnings for the 12 months ended 30 June 2024, including subscriber highlights for the Foxtel Group and financial results for the Subscription Video Services segment.

Commenting on the Foxtel Group at News Corp’s FY24 Q4 and Full Year Earnings Investor Briefing this morning, News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said: “At Subscription Video Services, revenue in the quarter grew on both a reported and constant currency basis, as streaming strength more than offset broadcast declines. Audiences are continuing to transition from traditional broadcast to over-the-top consumption.”

Subscription Video Services Segment Highlights

• Adjusted [1] Q4 Revenues for the Subscription Video Services segment grew 2% year-on-year.
• Adjusted Full Year Revenues for the Subscription Video Services segment grew 1% year-on-year.

Key Foxtel Group Subscriber Metrics

• Total Foxtel Group subscribers of 4.776 million (4.690 million paid), up 1% on year-on-year.
• Total streaming subscribers, including Kayo Sports, BINGE and Foxtel Now reached 3.305 million (3.221 million paid), up 5% year-on-year
  • Streaming subscribers represented approximately 69% of the Foxtel Group’s total subscriber (66% in Q4 FY23)
  • Kayo Sports reached 1.606 million subscribers (1.550 million paid), up 14%
  • BINGE reached 1.552 million subscribers (1.529 million paid), up 1%

• Foxtel residential and commercial broadcast subscribers were 1.452 million
  • Foxtel Residential subscribers reached 1.210 million.
  • Broadcast ARPU rose 6% year-on year to A$90
  • Broadcast churn for the quarter was 11.7%

Mr Thomson continued: “We believe Foxtel is particularly well-positioned for both subscriber and advertising growth as Kayo and Binge have gained traction given their unique strengths in sports and entertainment programming. Those two services added almost 200,000 paying subscribers in the quarter and digital advertising now represents more than 40 percent of Foxtel’s total advertising with Kayo growing 42 percent compared to the prior year and the recently rolled-out ad offering at BINGE growing fourfold. We will keep you updated on the advertising renaissance as the quarters unfold.”

“Our launch of the Hubbl service is still in its early days, but, encouragingly, more than 30 percent of Hubbl customers are new to Foxtel, which is significant, given our existing presence and profile in the Australian marketplace. About 75 percent of customers of the Hubbl aggregation service purchase an additional Foxtel product along with their device and subscription. On the broadcast side, ARPU grew 6 percent and churn was a pleasingly low 11.7 percent for the quarter. Foxtel continued to generate strong cash flow as we were able to monetise our long-term sports rights across multiple platforms.”

News Corp CFO Susan Panuccio added: “Revenues for the quarter were $506m dollars, up 1% compared to the prior year. On an adjusted basis, revenues rose 2% versus the prior year.

“Streaming revenues accounted for 32% of circulation and subscription revenues, versus 29% in the prior year. Total closing paid subscribers across the Foxtel Group were nearly 4.7 million at quarter-end, up 1% from the prior year.

“Total paid streaming subscribers reached a record 3.2 million, increasing 5% versus the prior year and accounting for nearly 70% of the total paying subscriber base, with Kayo adding 108,000 subscribers and BINGE adding 76,000 compared to the prior quarter. This speaks to the success of our winter sport codes and strong entertainment content.

“Foxtel ended the quarter with over 1.2 million residential broadcast subscribers, down 10% year-over-year. Broadcast churn was 11.7% versus 11.1% in the prior year but down from over 13% last quarter, while Broadcast ARPU rose 6% to A$90 Australian dollars, benefiting from new pricing and packaging plans implemented in March. As a result, broadcast revenues declined at the lowest rate in constant currency in over five years.

“Segment EBITDA in the quarter of $74m dollars was down only $4m, or 5%, versus the prior year, despite including approximately $28m dollars of costs related to Hubbl for devices and marketing. Excluding the Hubbl investment, Foxtel’s profitability would have been higher for the quarter.”

On Outlook, Ms Panuccio said: “At Subscription Video Services: We plan to continue to scale streaming products while retaining high value broadcast customers through improved ARPU and churn measures. While we anticipate the rate of investment at Hubbl to be lower in Fiscal 2025, we do expect modestly higher programming costs related to sports rights escalators.”

Data and quotes are sourced from News Corp’s FY24 Q4 and Full Year Earnings Announcement and Investor Briefing of 8 August 2024 (New York). Full details can be found at https://investors.newscorp.com

[1] Adjusted to remove the effect of currency fluctuations. News Corp calculates the impact of foreign currency fluctuations for businesses reporting in currencies other than the US dollar by multiplying the results for each quarter in the current period by the difference between the average exchange rate for that quarter and the average exchange rate in effect during the corresponding quarter of the prior year and totalling the impact for all quarters in the current period.