Fox Revenue Jumps 22% to $4.6B, But Roku Deal Talk Is Off-Limits

Fox banned questions about its pending Roku acquisition on Monday's fiscal Q1 2027 earnings call, then reported a 22% revenue jump to $4.6 billion anyway. The company's investor relations representative pointed analysts to Fox's SEC filings before the call began, deflecting the deal everyone wanted to discuss.

CEO Lachlan Murdoch offered one concession: shareholder and foreign regulatory approvals for the Roku deal are secured, and Fox is still working with the DOJ on antitrust clearance. "[We] expect to close the transaction as soon as we can," Murdoch told investors, adding that Fox's "conviction in the opportunity has only grown." He argued pairing Roku's platform with Fox's sports, news and entertainment content builds "our position in the fastest-growing segments of the media landscape." No closing date, though — and antitrust clearance remains the gating item.

Where did the 22% growth come from?

Advertising carried the quarter. Total ad revenue rose 47%, and 60% within the TV segment, driven by three forces: the World Cup, early midterm political spending and Tubi, Fox's free ad-supported streaming service.

Tubi grew revenue 35% year over year, with total view time up 23%. Fox credited its content library, 10 new originals and a World Cup hub built on Fox's US English-language rights to the tournament. More than 600 creators produced viral content for the platform; the Tubi for Creators program launched in 2025 with six creators and has since recruited YouTube names including MrBeast and Jomboy Media.

CFO Steve Tomsic said Tubi's profits are growing despite higher content costs, contributing more to the bottom line than a year ago, when it turned its first profit. A Bank of America analyst on the call reminded Murdoch that he had previously called Tubi's then mid-teens growth unsustainable. "I don't remember saying that, but I'm sure I did… Thank you for calling me out on that one," Murdoch said. He now expects Tubi's profit margins to settle around 20% at "further maturity."

Tubi's audience, Murdoch said, is young, diverse and mostly cord-free (without a pay-TV subscription) — a hard-to-reasure group advertisers pay premiums for. "They're a very hard market for advertisers to reach," he said, a strong pitch to political campaigns in a midterm year.

How much midterm money did Fox book?

Fox booked more than $350 million in political ads this cycle. Tubi contributed roughly $50 million. Local stations took $250 million-plus, including many in battleground states where demand has exhausted ad inventory at some outlets. The remaining roughly $50 million went to national sports, news and entertainment.

Murdoch even reframed Tubi as local. "It's effectively local local revenue because it's targeted," he said.

Sports added lift: the FIFA World Cup final was the most-watched soccer telecast in US history; the World Series on Fox averaged 12 million viewers; and NFL "America's Game of the Week" draws nearly 25 million per game.

What did Murdoch say about Fox One?

He tempered expectations. Fox One subscriber acquisitions rose more than 30% in September versus the start of last football season, and roughly 97% of new subscribers lack cable. But when asked whether Fox One can replace traditional subscriber losses, Murdoch said: "Probably not, as sports seasons come and go." He added: "It's always a point in time. Every couple years, you've got to be careful to understand the strength of the political cycle."

Is Fox News in trouble?

Fox News finished the quarter as the most-watched cable news network, with 2.1 million primetime viewers and 1.3 million across all dayparts. But Nielsen data shows those figures down 17% and 16% year over year, and Fox News was the only major cable news network to decline. October total-day ratings fell 27% ahead of the midterms.

Murdoch blamed tough comparisons against last year's "tremendous news cycle" — the inauguration, Charlie Kirk's assassination and DOGE-related drama — and compared this cycle to the 2006 midterms. Viewers are not defecting to CNN or MS Now, he said; they are "just fatigued and watching slightly less television overall." Nielsen, for its part, shows both CNN and MS Now up from last year.

Cable advertising still rose 8% on sports strength, while digital news ad revenue fell. Murdoch pointed to Fox News Digital's rank as the top US news site and called digital news a "hyper-competitive market."

The quarter's headline numbers lean heavily on one-off events — a World Cup and a midterm — that will not repeat next year, a caveat Murdoch himself volunteered.