No Election, No Problem: Fox Beats Wall Street Expectations and Sets Revenue Record

(Image via Fox News)

Fox Corp. topped what Wall Street analysts were looking for on Wednesday when it reported its October-December revenue, thanks largely to an advertising boost driven by the MLB playoffs and Fox News remaining a go-to spot for cable advertisers.

The company reported $5.18 billion in fiscal second quarter revenue — up 2% year-over-year and about 3% better than the $5.03 billion analysts projected. Fox made that jump despite a dip in political ads across its channels — which makes sense, considering the previous year lined up with the 2024 election.

CEO Lachlan Murdoch praised Fox News on the company’s earnings call, saying it “achieved [its] highest second quarter advertising revenue ever.”

He added, “News business, further demographic expansion, and pricing growth in both direct response and national advertising all contributed to this strong result.”

Fox’s cable division — which includes Fox News, Fox Business, and its sports channels — reported revenue increased 5% annually to $2.28 billion during the quarter.

“Certainly the advertising market for Fox News has been incredibly robust,” Murdoch said.

Murdoch said the channel added about 200 new advertisers during the quarter, adding “so the demand for the product and audience remains incredibly strong.”

Wednesday’s earnings report comes after Mediaite reported in December that Fox News enjoyed its best ratings ever for a non-election year in 2025.

Fox News averaged 2.72 million primetime viewers last year — up 14% year-over-year — which was spearheaded by Jesse Watters Primetime and Greg Gutfeld’s eponymous show, as well as network staple Sean Hannity’s long-running program.  That primetime average was 80% higher than both CNN (580,000 viewers) and MS NOW (923,000) combined.

Jesse Watters had the most-watched show on cable last year, averaging 3.6 million viewers.

That helped the channel pull in advertisers during its second quarter, despite the lack of political ads compared to the year prior. Another thing that helped was the baseball playoffs featuring several prominent teams like the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, as well as some of those series going long — like the seven-game World Series between LA and the Toronto Blue Jays.

Fox’s Q2 net income dropped from $388 million to $247 million compared to the same quarter the year prior; the company pointed to higher sports programming and production costs as one reason for the dip. Earnings per share of  52 cents were below the 81 cents analysts were looking for, Deadline reported.

Distribution revenue — which stems from its cable programming and retransmission fees, as well as subscription fees — was up 4% year-over-year to $2.0 billion

One other thing that stood out: Murdoch said Fox News content accounted for 33% of all viewership on Fox One, the company’s streaming platform.

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