The Fox broadcast network had its biggest fall launch in 13 years, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said Wednesday, telling Wall Street analysts the company maintains a strong appetite for entertainment programming.
Speaking on the company’s fiscal second quarter earnings call, Murdoch called out the premieres of Memory of a Killer, Best Medicine and Fear Factor. Each exceeded 10 million viewers across platforms in their first week, he said.
“The proof is in the pudding,” Murdoch said, noting that entertainment revenue at Fox was up in the quarter “for the first time in many years.” (He later said it was the first uptick in four years.)
Sports and news again drove quarterly results, and there are plenty of challenges ahead with sports rights fee increases and linear audience erosion. Still, entertainment has remained a surprising element in the mix given recent corporate history at Fox.
In 2019, Fox Corp. separated from 21st Century Fox when the latter was mostly taken over by Disney. The “RemainCo” was centered on news and sports, but questions were immediately raised about whether, or how, the broadcast network would maintain an entertainment profile.
Over the past year, Fox has signed agreements spanning scripted and unscripted with Jamie Foxx, Taraji P. Henson and former longtime HBO and Topic Studios exec Maria Zuckerman. The company is also pushing into the creator space, inking a vertical video deal with major YouTuber Dhar Mann.
“We will always sign first-look deals and creative deals with the best content creators and producers and writers in the industry,” Murdoch said. “That’s something that we’ve always done, and will continue to do.”
Overall, the CEO said, “we continue with our existing strategy on the entertainment network,” balancing scripted and non-scripted fare, with budgets in mind. The company looks to “maintain an efficient and, ultimately, profitable cost base.