Fox Corp at Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Wonderful. So I guess to start out wita big picture question, Fox has a streamlined portfolio of the broadcast network, TV stations, sports and news. And it's turned out to be a great strategy with Fox stock outperforming most peers over the last several years. Would you just talk a little bit about the strategy between -- behind the structure of Fox's businesses and your vision over the next few years?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Yes. Suffice to say, all of the networks in FOX's portfolio is really a must-have network at this point.

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Right. And one thing that's been particularly fascinating to me is that there is a history of bringing on along these other entertainment channels and you don't have that anymore, right? And it obviously takes multiple years for all those carriage negotiations to reset. So there's still a lot of leverage there. Let's talk a little bit more about sports. FOX has several sports media rights, the NFL, College football and basketball, NASCAR, MLB, MLS, FIFA World Cup. What is FOX's Sports right strategy? What's FOX's appetite for adding more sports right or even rationalizing some which the company has seen in the past?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Right. Okay. It's hard to talk about the TV.

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Yes. And I'm of the view that things like rationalizing the rights cost for the WWE might actually end up being accretive for the company because it hasn't worked out as well.

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : It's hard to talk about the TV ecosystem without talking about what's happening with Pay TV subscriber trends, cord cutting. Do we reach a point in time where everybody who's cut the court has done it, and the subscribers who are left are more durable, more sustainable, and we might see cord cutting decelerate. What's your view of what's happening with pay-TV subscribers? And should we see any change in cord cutting?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : And maybe you can talk a little bit more about your outlook on skinny bundles? Obviously, a lot of attention paid to skinny bundles in the market right now. Lots of moving pieces to say the least, but I just love your view on that. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 10, 2024 / 5:50PM, FOXA.OQ - Fox Corp at Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Okay. And I can appreciate there might not be much to say here, but I was just wondering if you could talk about how investors should think about venue.

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Yes. No, that makes a lot of sense, and it's really about delivering content and how consumers want to consume it, not really thinking about network but thinking about sports. I think we saw a little bit about that in the Olympics with Peacock. I think they did a great job with Gold Zone. Is [Venue] the answer for FOX in terms of like how to deliver more consumer-oriented experience around sports through?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Great. And maybe just to round out the discussion on sports. I was curious if you would talk to us about whether Fox was ever interested in the NBA. Did that ever make sense for the Sports right portfolio? Or was it just not going to be additive?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Okay. Great. Let's pivot over to FOX News. FOX News has undergone some very meaningful personnel and programming changes over the last couple of years. The viewership at the network certainly saw a little bit of a normalization, but the viewership in the couple of months has been fantastic to say the least. Could you talk about the performance of the FOX News, your outlook for the network? How has ratings performance, advertiser demand, kind of played out relative to your expectations when these programming and personnel changes were initially made?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : That's great to hear. Let's talk a little bit about political ad spending on the local TV stations. You're -- we're hearing a lot about political advertising strength, not only for the presidential election, but certainly down ballot. Are you expecting to see record political advertising spend this year, I think you guys have said record, excluding the [Jorge] runoffs. But -- maybe you can talk about how FOX's TV stations [O&Os] are positioned to benefit from this?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : And a lot of the (inaudible) is probably accruing to FOX News.

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Right. And that's a great point around Tubi. I mean, I think we all understand political tends to be highly local and -- to be does not only have the benefit of very targeted on a geography basis from a demo basis, I'm assuming you can get more sophisticated customer pro your profiles right?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : And it was encouraging to hear that the DR market has certainly gotten better relative to a year ago. How would you just characterize the overall advertising market, linear national?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Great. Let's talk a little bit more about Tubi. Could you just talk about the state of the, I'll call it, the connected TV advertising market. Obviously, there's been some concern around increased supply coming from Amazon Prime and things like that. Is that much of a concern as it relates to Tubi pricing? Or has Tubi been able to navigate through those that competitive supply well?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Great. And we started this conversation talking about FOX's portfolio of must-have channels and maybe you can talk about what that means when you go into carriage negotiations, right? Affiliate fees for FOX in 4% year-over-year last fiscal year, 9% growth in TV, flat in cable. Is there a capacity for fee rate growth to potentially outpace for cutting at some point?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : Yes. I wanted to ask about sports betting. FOX has an 18.6% option to acquire -- sorry, an option to acquire 18.6% of [FanDuel] and obviously, there's been a history with FOX Bet and things like that. And it feels like a feature that could be really additive to a video product. Could you just talk about how you're evaluating and assessing the opportunity in sports betting?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : In the last minute we have, I was wondering if you could just talk about key priorities, strategic goals. What does FOX look like in three to four years from now?

Question: Michael NG - Goldman Sachs - Analyst : That's an excellent way to cap it off. Lachlan, thank you so much.