Fox - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Fox Corporation's First Quarter Fiscal Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. I would like to emphasize that the functionality for the question-and-answer queue will be given at that time. Should you require assistance during the call, please press star then zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Chief Investor Relations Officer, Miss Gabrielle Brown. Please go ahead, Miss Brown.

Gabrielle Brown (Chief Investor Relations Officer)

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to our fiscal 2024 first quarter earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Lachlan Murdoch, Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer, John Nallen, Chief Operating Officer, and Steve Tomsic, our Chief Financial Officer. First, Lachlan and Steve will give some prepared remarks on the most recent quarter, and then we'll take questions from the investment community. Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements regarding Fox Corporation's financial performance and operating results. These statements are based on management's current expectations and actual results could differ from what is stated as a result of certain factors identified on today's call and in the company's SEC filings. Additionally, this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA or EBITDA, as we refer to it on this call.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and our SEC filings, which are available in the investor relations section of our website. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Lachlan.

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

Thank you, Gabby, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. I just want to start with a comment and a note of thanks. We are living through tumultuous times, and at the outset, I want to acknowledge the work our journalists are doing covering the horrific October 7th terrorist attack and the subsequent ongoing war in the Middle East. From the reporting of Trey Yingst, Greg Palkot, Mike Tobin, and Lucas Tomlinson in Israel, and Steve Harrigan in Beirut, to the deep analysis and insightful commentary by our reporters and hosts, including John Roberts and Trace Gallagher, to the essential and brave work of our on-the-ground producers and camera crews, Fox is fulfilling its mission to find, report, and analyze the news of the day without fear or favor. News reporting is hard, and war reporting is perhaps the hardest.

While the horror central to this news cycle can wear heavily on those we ask to expose them, their exposure is necessary. So our team deserves our admiration and our gratitude as they continue to work tirelessly and under demanding conditions to keep us up to date on events far away and on their impact closer to home. My sincere thanks to them all. Now, turning to today's first quarter earnings release. Against a backdrop of an active news cycle and a robust sports schedule, fiscal 2024 has started off on a solid operational and financial footing. Fox's focused portfolio of assets continues to distinguish itself and deliver exceptional results. Financially, we are now comparing against the fiscal 2023 cycle of events that delivered then record revenues and EBITDA. Despite this comparison, we've posted total revenues this year, slightly ahead of last year's record.

On the affiliate side, we reported 2% total affiliate growth, led by 8% growth of the TV segment in the quarter. Importantly, we have continued to secure constructive renewals, which deliver for our partners and reinforce the value of our brands and programming. Advertising revenues in the quarter decreased by around 2%, principally due to a comparative quarter last year that was much heavier in political ad revenues at our local TV stations. We understand there is inconsistency around the broader advertising market, particularly in entertainment, but our focus on live sports and news continues to deliver with healthy national pricing and demand in addition to continued momentum at Tubi. Underpinning revenue are our core brands, which consistently resonate with viewers. The consumption data clearly shows this, with total viewing of Fox brands up 2% in the quarter.

Fox Sports was a big driver of that consumption, especially with its broadcast of the Women's World Cup, where the U.S. versus the Netherlands on Fox was the most-watched Women's World Cup game, match ever on U.S. English-language television. From summer to fall, our lineup is bolstered by our football packages, led by the NFL on Fox, where we are averaging over 17 million viewers through week eight. Based on the strength of our remaining schedule, especially from Thanksgiving through Christmas, we expect that engagement to improve significantly. In college football, interest is reaching new highs. Fox's Big Noon Saturday is progressing to a third straight year as the number one game window in all of college football, averaging almost 6 million viewers. At Tubi, we had another enviable quarter, delivering 30% revenue growth, driven by an impressive 65% lift in total view time.

Tubi surpassed 70 million monthly active users in September, logged nearly 4 billion streaming hours in the first half of the calendar year, and remains the number one AVOD player and most-watched free ad-supported TV streaming service in the United States. Additionally, Tubi has beaten Pluto, Max, Paramount+, and Peacock in view time for five consecutive months. One reason for the high engagement levels at Tubi is its extensive content library that now exceeds 60,000 titles, which translates into more than 225,000 movies and TV episodes, in addition to approximately 300 FAST channels. During the quarter, Tubi introduced Rabbit AI, a ChatGPT-4-powered recommendation engine to help users navigate this incredible range of titles. Tubi also offers a unique and compelling proposition to advertisers.

A recent MRI study of streaming peers concluded that Tubi saw the fastest growth among young and diverse populations, and that Tubi is able to deliver high-value net new audiences, with 33% of Tubi streamers unreachable on other top AVOD services. Now turning back to Fox News, the strength of our overall news coverage and the reach of our linear audio and digital content is unmatched. Whether it is the conflict in the Middle East, the upcoming 2024 election cycle, or volatility in the financial markets, Fox News is increasingly the viewer's first choice. The launch of our new expanded primetime lineup in mid-July further solidified Fox News's leadership position, not only in cable news, but in all of cable, finishing the quarter as the most-watched cable network in both total day and primetime.

Fox News maintained its lead as the most-watched cable news network, beating CNN and MSNBC in total viewers and in the demo for both prime and total day. We have seen this lead continue and expand in the current quarter, with October viewership increasing over 20% from the first quarter, with over 30% growth in the key demo. Ratings leadership during the quarter was achieved across the platform. The Fox News Channel had the top six cable news programs, with P2+ and the top seven programs within the demo. In P2+, The Five led the way in terms of viewers, followed by Jesse Watters Primetime and Hannity, while The Five, Gutfeld!, Hannity, and Jesse Watters Primetime were the top four programs in the demo.

Fox Business Network ended the quarter as the most-watched business cable network, beating CNBC in total viewers during the business day for the sixth consecutive quarter. The election cycle started off with a successful Republican presidential primary debate, which was Fox News Channel's highest-rated telecast since Election Day 2020, and the highest-rated non-sports telecast of the year across cable. While the debate kicked off the election cycle, once we get deeper into it, our local station group will benefit greatly from increased political spend in the coming quarters. Over at Fox Entertainment, we started the 2023-2024 broadcast season as the number one network in the key adults 18-49 demo, and Fox ranks as the top network in entertainment programming, a first in at least 10 years.

Fox has three of the top four highest-rated premieres of the 2023-2024 season to date in Krapopolis, The Simpsons, and The Masked Singer, and the season's number one new game show with Snake Oil. Across the company, fiscal 2024 is shaping up nicely. We look forward to great enthusiasm across the fall sports season, underpinned by the NFL, college football, and now the completed World Series. Continued viewing growth at Tubi and renewed momentum at Fox News and our local stations as the election cycle heats up. Our balance sheet remains a core asset for Fox, and we will continue to deploy it in a disciplined and thoughtful manner that delivers value for our shareholders. Finally, I would like to congratulate my father on his 70-year career at News Corp and Fox.

His enduring legacy can be felt in both of these companies, and I can assure you that he is still very much involved and will continue to be for years to come. With that, I'll turn it over to Steve to take you through the operating details of the quarter.

Steve Tomsic (CFO)

Thanks, Lachlan, and good morning, everyone. Fox reported total first quarter company revenues of $3.21 billion, which is slightly above the prior year quarter. This was led by a 2% increase in affiliate fee revenues, as the pricing gains from recent distribution renewals more than offset the impact from industry subscriber declines. From an advertising perspective, we of course, faced a tough comparison to last year's record midterm political revenues at our local stations. This, coupled with continued softness in the direct response marketplace at Fox News, more than offset the benefits we saw from the broadcast of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the 30% revenue growth generated at Tubi, and continued supportive national pricing for live content. Taken as a whole, our advertising revenues declined 2%. Meanwhile, total company other revenues increased 2% or $6 million.

Quarterly Adjusted EBITDA was $869 million, as compared to the $1.09 billion reported in the prior year quarter. Expenses increased this quarter, driven by higher rights, amortization, and production costs associated with the Women's World Cup, the first-year step-up from our NFL rights renewal, and increased expenses at our digital businesses. Net income attributable to stockholders of $407 million or $0.82 per share, compared to the $605 million or $1.10 per share reported in the prior year period. This move largely reflects the EBITDA impact I just mentioned, along with the change in fair value of the company's investment in Flutter, recognized in other net. Excluding this impact on other non-core items, Adjusted EPS was $1.09 versus last year's $1.21.

Turning to our operating segment results, starting with television, where we delivered total quarterly revenues of $1.78 billion or a 4% increase year-over-year. This was driven by an 8% increase in TV affiliate revenues, as healthy growth in fees across all Fox-affiliated stations more than offset the impact from industry subscriber declines. Advertising revenues at our TV segment grew 1%, led by the benefits from the broadcast of the Women's World Cup, continued growth at Tubi, and the timing of college football broadcasts, partially offset by the absence of last year's midterm political revenues and lower ratings at the Fox network. Television other revenues increased 6% in the quarter, primarily a result of the timing of participations tied to our entertainment production initiatives.

The growth in revenue at our television segment was more than offset by a 10% increase in expenses, including costs associated with the Women's World Cup, the first-year step-up associated with the renewal of our NFL rights, and continued investment at Tubi. Together, these revenue and expense impacts led to quarterly adjusted EBITDA of $351 million at our television segment, compared to the $409 million reported in the prior year quarter. Our cable segment reported total quarterly revenues of $1.39 billion, a 3% decrease year-over-year. Cable affiliate revenues were down 2% in the quarter, largely a result of industry subscriber declines, which continue to run in the 8% range.

Cable advertising revenues were down 8% as the broadcasts of the Women's World Cup and the Men's CONCACAF Gold Cup were more than offset by the continued impact of a softer direct response marketplace and lower ratings at Fox News Media. Notably, though, we continue to see healthy national linear and digital demand from advertisers of Fox News Media. Cable other revenues increased by $6 million in the quarter due to the timing of sports sublicensing revenues. Meanwhile, expenses at our cable segment increased 13%, led by higher programming rights amortization and production costs for the Women's World Cup and Gold Cup, the timing of college football broadcasts at Fox Sports 1, and contractual rights increases across our sports portfolio.

All in all, this resulted in adjusted EBITDA at our cable segment of $607 million, compared to the $742 million reported in the prior year period. Turning to cash flow, where free cash flow, which we define as net cash provided by operating activities, less CapEx, was -$70 million in the quarter. This is consistent with the seasonality of our working capital cycle, where the first half of our fiscal year is characterized by a concentration of payments to sports rights and the buildup of advertising-related receivables, both of which reverse in the second half of our fiscal year. From a capital deployment perspective, fiscal year to date, we have repurchased a further $300 million through our share, share buyback program.

We've now cumulatively repurchased $4.9 billion, representing approximately 24% of our total shares outstanding since the launch of the buyback program in 2019, and we remain committed to utilizing our full buyback authorization of $7 billion. This is supported by the strength of our balance sheet, where we ended the quarter with approximately $3.8 billion in cash and $7.2 billion in debt. This excludes the $1.25 billion of senior notes that we issued in early October, the proceeds from which we intend to use to pay down the corresponding maturity coming due in January 2024. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Gabby.

Gabrielle Brown (Chief Investor Relations Officer)

Thank you, Steve. And now we would be happy to take questions from the investment community.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to emphasize the functionality for the question and answer queue. If you wish to ask a question, please press one, then zero on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a tone indicating you've been placed in the queue. You may remove yourself from queue at any time by repeating the one zero command. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing your number. Again, if you have a question, please press one, then zero. It has been requested that you limit yourself to one question. One moment for our first question, and that'll come from Robert Fishman from MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.

Robert Fishman (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. After deciding on passing on the WWE renewal, can you share anything specific on how you evaluated the ROI of the deal in the context of driving higher advertising and affiliate fee revenue? And then maybe just more broadly, can you discuss whether you expect to see any impact on future sports rights negotiations if the Disney Charter renewal impacts the industry rate of cord-cutting or affiliate fee growth going forward? Thank you.

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

Hey, good morning, Rob. There's a lot in there, so let me unpack it bit by bit, and if I-- I hope I don't miss anything. You know, how we... I think we've talked about this before, but how we analyze the WWE renewal, and, you know, we look at, you know, all sp- all of our sports,

portfolio in the same way and on all new rights opportunities to acquire new rights in the same way. We, you know, on the basis of an analyst analysis, sorry, we, you know, on both an advertising point of view, we were not hitting the advertising numbers due to the audience of the WWE to make our return on investment to be above the levels that we would accept. But also we didn't attribute enough significant retransmission revenue to the WWE either. So it made sense for us to move on from them.

They've been a great partner for many years, but just quite simply, we're very disciplined, and the ROI didn't meet our, you know, pretty disciplined parameters. So we wished them luck, and we've moved on from them. You know, we're currently in, I think the final stages of a very constructive negotiation for our NASCAR renewal. You know, we look forward to continuing that partnership with NASCAR. It's been a great partnership, you know, for many years, and obviously, you know, NASCAR exceeds our expectations and from a ROI point of view.

In terms of Disney and Charter and how that affects our view going forward, I think it's a net positive for us. You know, I think that you know, we want our distributors to do well. We want them to you know, to continue to invest in high-quality programming and high-quality brands. And obviously, between you know, Fox News and Fox Sports, our station group and our network, you know, we have a very focused you know, very valuable set of core brands that distributors such as Charter value. So net-net, the Disney Charter deal has been positive for us and positive for our strategy.

Gabrielle Brown (Chief Investor Relations Officer)

Next question, please.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Ben Swinburne from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ben Swinburne (Managing Director and Head of U.S. Media Research)

Thanks. Good morning. My one question is on sort of unlocking value, although it does admittedly have two pieces that might be connected. I guess first, Fox... It's a confession. I wanted to ask about sports and Tubi. So arguably, the popularity of sports, particularly football and even more particularly college football, has probably never been higher. I mean, your college rights are probably more valuable today than ever. And I'm just wondering if you guys have ideas on capitalizing and maximizing the return on those rights beyond the kind of stuff we always think about with, you know, advertising on the live rights and retrans fees. And then kind of related, maybe, is leveraging Tubi, both in terms of sports, but also just broadly.

Like, your stock doesn't have, I think, probably objectively, credit for what Tubi is worth, and it continues to grow. Are you guys thinking about ways to try to highlight that value more or, or scale it up maybe through some strategic activity? I don't know. Any thoughts on helping to unlock some value around an asset that's, that's obviously doing quite well and probably would be worth a lot more as a public company than, than what it, what it is currently priced at inside of, Fox? So I know that's a lot, but would love your thoughts.

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

No, that's fine, Ben. Good morning.

Ben Swinburne (Managing Director and Head of U.S. Media Research)

Good morning.

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

So, I think the best way I can, you know, I can answer both questions sort of with one answer, I suppose, which is the, you know, the value. You're 1,000% right. You know, college football has never been more popular. It's, you know, it's rating extremely well. And one of the things we haven't talked about is, frankly, advertisers have found it. Advertisers are pouring in to college football with tremendous rates and with tremendous, you know, appetite for volume because they can see the value in this audience. And perhaps it's been, you know, underpriced in past years, I'm not sure.

But certainly advertisers are recognizing the opportunity in college football, and obviously, we're the leader. But you know, ultimately, we build value through our brands and through you know through the Fox Sports brand and Fox Sports and station distribution. And so you know, we'll continue to build value through college football through the FoxSports brand and monetizing it that way. The same thing with Tubi. You know first of all you know, we don't envisage any kind of significant live sports on Tubi in the near or frankly, medium perhaps even long-term future.

But, you know, Tubi is very focused on primarily, you know, entertainment, particularly in video-on-demand entertainment, which makes that content and then engagement with their users, you know, all the more valuable. And I think it'll be, you know, a long time before we see, you know, significant live sports on Tubi. In terms of how we, you know, unlock the value in Tubi, Tubi will be the way our audiences, you know, primarily engage with entertainment in the future. It's a core part of our business and a core part of our strategy.

And so, you know, we're building value there, you know, organically, through driving its growth. I couldn't be more pleased with the arrival of our new CEO, Anjali Sud. She's doing a tremendous job and has a very clear and, you know, strategic sort of attention and view for how we continue to drive Tubi's success. So, thank you, Ben.

Gabrielle Brown (Chief Investor Relations Officer)

Operator, we'll take the next question.

Operator (participant)

That's from Jessica Reif Ehrlich from Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Jessica Reif Ehrlich (Managing Director)

Thank you. First of all, I kinda wanna say I really appreciate your introductory comments regarding news reporting and, of course, about your father, who is definitely one of a kind.

But, but my question, I guess, two-part, too, as usual, from all of us. First, on advertising, can you give us your outlook for political advertising and what the current tone of sports advertising is? We know the general market seems, still seems pretty tepid. And then, maybe a kind of a nuance on what Ben just asked, but the longer-term vision for Tubi, like, like, it, it's clear, you know, there's tremendous growth near term, but is this the vehicle as you think about possibly transitioning to, to streaming, given the decline in the universe, or how are you thinking about it?

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

Thank you, Jessica, and then thanks for your thanks for my comments. So, let me start with advertising. So, you know, the... You know, we also hear and understand that the advertising market, you know, appears to be, I'd say I use the word mixed, right? Or sort of unsettled. However, you know, we are not seeing that to the same extent due to our focus on sports and news. So, you know, let me start with sports, where we're seeing high demand around, you know, our NFL, and we just discussed our college football schedule.

You know, particularly on, in the national sort of market, pharmaceuticals, auto, quick service restaurants and CPG categories have all been, you know, quite active. And I think importantly, our pricing has been at a premium to our upfront. It's a modest premium, but we are pricing above our upfronts, which, you know, shows certainly in the sports category, you know, the market remains healthy. This will be somewhat tempered by post season baseball, including the conclusion of the World Series last night.

You know, I think, you know, sometimes you get lucky, and you get seven-game series, you know, with match-ups that incite the imagination of a national audience, and sometimes you're less lucky. So that's how the cookie crumbles. And so, I think, you know, we would like to have seen more games, and we'd like to have seen a bit more sort of national excitement around these games, but it is what it is. Having said that, you know, we should congratulate the Texas Rangers for a great season and winning the World Series.

At Fox News Media, national advertising is solid with growing pricing. And, you know, it's important to note that we have over 80 new national advertisers in prime time, specifically in our 8:00 P.M. hour in the first quarter. So, you know, the refreshing of our schedule and our lineup, you know, has worked from both a ratings perspective but also from an advertising perspective, you know, really, really very well. Direct response continues to face some headwinds really from last year, from the previous upfront, where there was, which technically created sort of an oversupply in the market for direct response and put downward pressure on pricing.

You know, we would expect as we go forward, for that, that pressure to be relieved. There will be some... And we've got increased audiences, due to the news cycle, which is a positive from a ratings point of view, but that's partially offset by an increased level of preemptions, you know, due to our kind of really in-depth and incredible reporting. So overall, I should say just overall at sports and news, you know, we are very you know happy with the overall performance of both of those verticals in our business. We're also very happy at Tubi.

You know, we've announced we have, you know, 30% revenue gains, which is, you know, really driven off, you know, the, the, 65%, you know, growth in, in, in total view time. I think going forward, you know, we'll see continued growth in view time. Anjali is very focused on that. And what there is softness in the entertainment advertising market, and Tubi is not immune from that softness. But Anjali is focused on how we better monetize. You know, we've ridden this incredible growth in audience and viewership, and now it's time to really focus on how we more effectively and efficiently monetize that huge audience.

You know, we've earned the right because of the audience growth to really start to take a greater share of wallet from our advertising partners. Finally, the local stations, we are pacing slightly ahead of last year in the base market if you exclude political. You have to remember, you know, this quarter last year, October particularly, and I think it had over $125 million worth of political revenue in the month of October alone. So it's a huge year-on-year comparison. But ex political, we're very pleased that the base market is strong. You know, then that's really led by the auto and recently, the retail categories are very strong, and also financial services.

That's offset with betting, wagering, and also entertainment, right? It's, it's, there's not a lot of... But due to the strike in Hollywood, there's no movie launches. So that, that's, you know, offsetting some of the growth in auto, retail, and financial services. Now I should go on to some of your, the other part of your question in the- sorry for taking too long, Jessica. That's what happens when you ask three questions in one. But, so the long- the, the longer-term v- strategy for Tubi, look, I think, you know, we, we have a multipronged strategy. I think Tubi is in a, you know, enviable position. It's the leading, AVOD player. It's, it's free, it's focused, it's entirely advertising, driven.

That's appreciated by all of our clients, and obviously by our audiences. I couldn't be happier with our transition from, you know, Farhad, who is an incredible entrepreneur, who deserves all the credit for founding and building and driving Tubi to date. It's always a difficult transition when you move to from a founder to a new leadership. So far, it's early days, but you know, Anjali is very focused on all the issues and all the opportunities that Tubi has in front of it to continue to grow at a, you know, at impressive levels.

But, you know, Tubi is our, our free AVOD streaming service. You know, that does not... It's not our only strategy in the streaming space. You know, direct-to-consumer, you know, is obviously something that we look at closely. We have a small direct-to-consumer SVOD service in Fox Nation, and we have optionality of, you know, expanding those services, you know, further into news and potentially sports. So, I hope I answered most of your questions, Jessica.

Gabrielle Brown (Chief Investor Relations Officer)

Operator, next question, please.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from John Hodulik from UBS. Please go ahead.

John Hodulik (Telecom and Cable Analyst)

Okay, great. Morning, everyone. First, can we just get an update on the affiliate renewal process? I think you guys had said that it would be more weighted on the TV side, but I think a lot of the new agreements kick in in January, so just any color on the trends we should see there. And then getting back to the Charter-Disney renewal, you guys seem to be somewhat unique in that you don't really have any long-tail networks or I would say, a major SVOD platform. Lachlan, you talked about Fox Nation, but it's obviously very different than what we're seeing in the rest of the industry.

Just any thoughts on the implications for Fox if this model that we've seen out of this renewal would be broadly adopted over time for the industry? Thanks.

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

Thanks, John. On affiliate renewal, let me start with the big picture, and Steve can talk to any of the numbers going forward, but or not, depending on. But look, the main thing on affiliate renewal is, you know, we really due to our focus strategy, our focus on our core, our core brands. Also, I think our focus on being good partners with our distributors and wanting their businesses, you know, to succeed, because frankly, from a Fox perspective, the cable bundle, cable distribution or pay TV distribution, it remains our largest and, you know, really the most important revenue stream.

And that, we believe that it will remain our largest, you know, for years to come. So we are, you know, we feel the success of our distribution partners is our success as well. We want them to succeed, and we want them to do well, which is one reason why, you know, we have kept, you know, our premium content within the cable bundle. You know, we are not interested in, at this stage, you know, moving premium content away from our cable distribution partners. That would be, I think, a mistake for us and for them.

And so due to that, and since our last call a quarter ago, we have renewed a number of distribution contracts. And in every case, we've been rewarded by that focus, rewarded by our partnerships with our affiliate partners, our distribution partners, you know, with our rate increases and distribution agreements that fit absolutely in line with our plan. And that's because they value our brands, they value Fox News, they value Fox Sports, and obviously our local stations and network. So we...

You know, we are very pleased with our pace of affiliate renewals, and we haven't seen any changes to the way we're able to work constructively with our partners. And that goes to the second part of your question with Charter and Disney. You know, it's hard for me to say how I don't want to talk about other people. I know a lot of people are having their earnings calls next week. I think we're early in the media cycle. They can talk about how that renewal affects them and particularly their entertainment channels. For us, because we're not in that space, I think it's a net positive.

You know, we like to see our... you know, our partners focus on the core brands. The core brands where all the audience is, and frankly, where the leverage is in terms of retransmission, and less so on channels that might not be as popular. So Steve, do you want?

Steve Tomsic (CFO)

Yes. So John, just to reinforce Lachlan's point, we had just over a third of our distribution renewals due this fiscal year, and we're virtually through all of that. So that's, and as Lachlan mentioned, we've achieved our pricing objectives against those renewals, which goes to, A, the fact that we haven't gone dark with any distributors and the fact that we've been able to achieve objectives. And I'm assuming the distributors are also happy with those renewals. It goes to the constructive relationship we have with those distributors. And so listen, we negotiate our full portfolio as a bundle, and I think you should expect to see that coming into the new calendar year, you'll see the impact of those renewals, and I suspect that the benefit of those will be skewed towards the television segment.

You should also expect to see some progress on the cable side in the new year, in the new calendar year, I should say.

Gabrielle Brown (Chief Investor Relations Officer)

Operator, we have time for one more question.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. And that question will come from the line of Phil Cusick from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Phil Cusick (Managing Director)

Hi. Thanks. A lot's been asked, but Lachlan, thinking about your comments on DR and recognizing that some of those upfront issues hopefully fade, but it makes me curious about your view on the future of the linear video ad landscape. You know, you have Tubi, which allows you to benefit from the shift to digital, but do you think we've reached a tipping point where linear video advertising is in secular, not just cyclical decline? Thank you.

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

Thank you, Phil. The short answer is you gotta—you have to, I think, break it up by category, right? And so if we look at sports, and news, there's no sign of, you know, a slowdown in sort of demand for the really incredible and unique reach that those platforms deliver our advertising clients. I think, you know, the DR issue is a specific issue that really relates to, you know, upfront before last. You know, where, due to the negotiating strategy of some of our competitors, there was an oversupply of direct response in the market, and that's driven pricing down.

You know, and we see. We didn't see the same activity in this past upfront, and so we expect the pricing pressure on DR to ameliorate or you know, wash out, in the coming quarters. So we do see that as a shorter-term problem and not a structural problem at all. And so it comes back to, you know, particularly in news and sports, you know, there is no other content or platform that offers, you know, the reach that those categories offer. And so, you know, we are, you know, optimistic is not a strong enough word.

You know, we are very confident in the future of linear advertising when you can deliver the audiences that we deliver with the brands and the brand safety that we also can offer our clients.

Gabrielle Brown (Chief Investor Relations Officer)

At this point, we are out of time, but if you have any further questions, please give me or Dan Carey a call. Thank you once again for joining today.

Lachlan Murdoch (Executive Chair and CEO)

Thank you, everyone.

Steve Tomsic (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference call for today. Thank you for using AT&T Executive Teleconference. You may now disconnect.