21st Century Fox added more than a billion dollars in revenue during its fiscal Q1, with gains in four major categories. But results were mixed when it came to OIBDA, with difficult filmed entertainment comps suppressing the bottom line.
Total revenue was $7.61B, up 18% from the prior Q1’s $6.03B. But OIBDA increased only 2% to $1.62B.
The breakdown:
* Cable Network Programming: $2.81B, up from $2.503B
* Television: $1.048B, up from $972M
* Filmed Entertainment: $2.12B, up from $1.937B
* Direct Broadcast Satellite TV: $1.39B, up from $828M
* Other, Corporate and Eliminations: loss of $307M, against a loss of $237M
Here’s the OIBDA picture for the same categories:
* Cable Network Programming: $991M, down from $1.015B
* Television: $231M, up from $178M
* Filmed Entertainment: $328M down from $433M
* Direct Broadcast Satellite TV: $190M, up from $95M
* Other, Corporate and Eliminations: loss of $122M compared to a loss of $1.32M
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch said, “In our first quarter as 21st Century Fox, we delivered strong revenue increases across all of our businesses as well as growth in OIBDA even as we made significant investment in our channels business, and faced a difficult film comparison and currency headwinds. The investment we are making, including the launch of FXX and Fox Sports 1, will drive future sustained growth toward our stated 2016 target of $9 billion of OIBDA and beyond.”
Fox’s television group benefitted from higher retransmission consent income and excellent NFL results, offsetting a disappointing quarter for the network’s “X Factor” as well as the loss of political income. Note that as the operator of a Big Four network, Fox gets both local retransmission income and reverse compensation from non-O&O affiliates.
The loss of OIBDA on the filmed entertainment side was attributed to the company’s inability to match the success of last year’s “Ice Age: Continental Drift.”
