Fox Corp.

Fox Corp. has brought on a new head of communications. Brian Nick, most recently at Coca-Cola Consolidated, is joining the company as executive vice president and chief communications officer, reporting to Fox Corp. Chairman-CEO Lachlan Murdoch.

KRIV Houston reporter Ivory Hecker started her live shot Monday by telling viewers that the station’s owner, Fox Corp., is muzzling her and she is releasing tapes to prove it. “I am going to be releasing some recordings about what goes on behind the scenes at Fox, because it applies to you, the viewers,” she said. “I found a nonprofit journalism group called Project Veritas that is going to help put that out tomorrow, so tune into them.” She then went on with her live shot.

“The Sunday NFC package has been the most watched NFL package for the past 16 years. Our NFC coverage is an important foundation for the Fox Network and strategically aligns with our local stations, where we own and operate the Fox affiliate in 14 of the 16 NFC markets,” Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch told analysts.

Fox Corp. beat Wall Street analysts’ forecasts for its fiscal third quarter, with results that reflected difficult comparisons with the Super Bowl period a year earlier. Earnings per share came in at 96 cents during the period ending March 31, well ahead of analysts’ consensus for 58 cents. Total revenue reached $3.22 billion, about $100 million ahead of the Street but down from $3.44 billion in the same quarter in 2020. Affiliate revenue increased 10%, powered by an 18% gain in the Television unit.

Fox Corp. is looking to turbocharge its digital business. To help it push into new business areas, the company has named Steve Chung its first chief growth officer. Fox says Chung will “focus on identifying and developing new digital business opportunities across existing and emerging growth categories.” Chung will report to Paul Cheesbrough, Fox CTO and president of digital.

Even before the company’s CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, moved to Australia, Viet Dinh was seen as Fox’s power center.

He is promoted from executive vice president and chief litigation counsel to oversee the company’s legal activities. In addition, Nicholas Trutanich joins fox as executive vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer.

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Thursday he expects the cable channel’s ratings to recover after a post-election dip.

Fox Corp. Executive Chairman-CEO Lachlan Murdoch sees strong gains coming for sports betting — both as a business and as an ad category — and from the Tubi streaming business.

Fox Corp. beat Wall Street expectations in its fiscal second quarter, with revenue of nearly $4.1 billion improving 8% from the year-earlier period. On an adjusted basis, earnings per share rose to 16 cents from 10 cents a year ago. The consensus forecast from analysts called for revenue of $4 billion and a loss of 3 cents a share. Advertising revenue rose 14% in the quarter, helped by a record haul of political advertising by Fox stations.

Smartmatic USA said today that it filed a $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox Corp., threeof its hosts and two former lawyers for former President Donald Trump — Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell — for $2.7 billion, charging that the defendants conspired to spread false claims that the company helped “steal” the U.S. presidential election.

Pointing out that the fate of its newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule is in legal limbo, the FCC’s Media Bureau has denied Fox Corp.’s request for a permanent waiver to own both WWOR Secaucus, N.J., and the New York Post, instead granting it another temporary waiver.

Employees at Fox Corp. had been told to get ready for a return to their offices as soon as January. Now they will wait until at least April. In a memo sent to staffers, Lachlan Murdoch, the company’s executive chairman and CEO, said Fox Corp. will push back a full re-opening of its facilities due to the rise of coronavirus cases around the nation.

Television (Fox Network, O&Os and Tubi streaming) reported revenues down $6 million to $1.35 billion in the quarter ending in September. Affiliate revenues (retrans and payments from affiliate stations) rose 23% to $560 million, while advertising declined 15% to $670 million. However, that began to change toward the end of the quarter and CFO Steve Tomsic said “the strong advertising momentum at [Fox] News, our local television stations and Tubi have all carried forward into the first month of this current quarter.”

Increasingly uncomfortable with News Corp’s politics and profit motives, Rupert’s younger son chose chickens and sheep over Fox, and insists he doesn’t watch Succession.

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the overseers of the Fox Corp. media conglomerate their family controls, saw their annual compensation fall for the most recent fiscal year in large part due to executives’ decision to give up salary between May and September as the company grappled with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch says the cable network is enjoying a thriving advertising market amid the U.S. presidential campaign. “You’ll see this Sunday, the Biden campaign spending quite substantially,” Murdoch reported.

Analyst Michael Nathanson last week suggested Fox Corp. sell off its broadcast assets, which are a drag on its bottom line. That prompts some guessing about who could bid — WarnerMedia? Sony? Amazon? — and the many reasons they are likelier to sit it out.

MoffettNathanson says that having spun off its core entertainment assets to Disney last year, owning a broadcast network and TV stations no longer makes strategic sense. Fox Corp. should sell them to a big studio owner like WarnerMedia or to any entity looking to use the power of broadcasting to launch direct-to-consumer streaming services.

The pay cuts spurred on by the novel coronavirus pandemic are beginning to wind down. Fox Corp. told employees in April that everyone at the VP level or above would see their pay cut by 15% through the end of July. In an email to staff last month, Fox chief legal and policy officer Viet Dinh wrote to staff confirming that pay would be returned to normal effective Aug. 1.

Fox Corp. Tuesday reported total sales of $2.42 billion last quarter, in line with expectations, down slightly (4%) from a year ago but off $1 billion from the previous three months as COVID-19 hit advertising.

Macquarie Capital analyst Tim Nollen has upgraded his rating on the stock of Fox Corp. to “neutral” and boosted his price target by $9 to $31, citing improving advertising trends that led him to increase his financial estimates, among other things. “The ad market is looking better than previously expected, and a return of live sports along with political ad spend in the second half of the calendar year would boost Fox,” he wrote in a Friday report.

CEO Lachlan Murdoch says that while some categories are down, others are pacing up — “so it’s a real mix.” Murdoch also noted that the local markets won’t recover at the same rate — it will be state-by-state based on how businesses reopen. “But we are beginning to see positive signs in the pacings going forward,” he said.

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch will forgo his salary amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and 700 employees at the company will see salary reductions, the executive said in an internal memo on Wednesday.

Fox Corp. said it is selling $1.2 billion worth of notes and will use net proceeds for general corporate purposes. Companies are raising cash at a rapid pace as a nest egg against the harsh economic impact and unknown duration of the coronvirus. Earlier Tuesday Fox said the the COVID-19 spread could have an adverse material impact on its business. It’s the latest in a stream of companies to both officially declare the risk the economic shutdown poses to their business and raise cash to see it through hard times.

Fox Corp. has joined the chorus of media companies publicly acknowledging the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its business, noting canceled sports events and postponed production. The COVID-19 outbreak “could have a material adverse effect on the company’s business, financial condition or results of operations over the near to medium term,” Fox said in an SEC filing Monday.

Fox Corp. said it will be skipping the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference where Lachlan Murdoch was scheduled to present Wednesday. It said the decision “was made out of an abundance of caution due to evolving public health concerns regarding COVID-19.” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Wehne, who were going to present today, were also no-shows. Disney executive chairman and until recently CEO Bob Iger was also slated for today but Disney canceled.

With the deals involving stations in Seattle, Milwaukee, and Charlotte, N.C., Fox Television Stations expands its footprint to 29 stations across the country. Nexstar says it will use the approximately $240 million of net after-tax proceeds from the deals to reduce borrowings under its credit facilities.

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp. declined to run advertisements for Bombshell, a film about the sexual-harassment scandal at Fox News, according to people familiar with the matter. The Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. movie — debuting nationally on Friday — is based on the accounts of female Fox News journalists who took on the network’s late chairman, Roger Ailes, after he allegedly sexual harassed them.

Next year should see broadcasters making advances in the continuing move to IP, greater use of cloud platforms and significant progress for two new wireless technologies: ATSC 3.0 and the various 5G services being rolled out by wireless carriers. Above, a Sony camcorder and prototype 5G transmitter were used to test camera backhauls over Verizon’s 5G network during a recent NBC NFL broadcast.

“You shouldn’t think of us doing something like a station group acquisition,” Fox CFO Steven Tomsic said Tuesday at the UBS Global Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference.

Nexstar will purchase Charlotte, N.C.’s Fox and MNT affiliates for approximately $45 million while Fox will buy Nexstar’s Seattle Fox and MNT affiliates and Milwaukee’s Fox affil for approximately $350 million.