Twenty-First Century Fox Profit Tops Street - Update

(RTTNews) - Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., (FOXA, FOX) Wednesday reported a profit for the fourth quarter that trumped Wall Street expectations, as revenues increased.

Fox's fourth-quarter profit dropped to $476 million or $0.26 per share from $567 million or $0.30 per share last year.

On an adjusted basis, earnings were $660 million or $0.36 per share, down from $845 million or $0.45 per share last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $0.37 per share for the quarter.

Revenues for the quarter rose 2 percent to $6.75 billion from $6.65 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $6.77 billion for the quarter.

Revenue growth reflects higher affiliate and advertising revenue at the Cable Network Programming partially offset by lower content revenues at the Filmed Entertainment segment and lower advertising revenues at the Television segment, the company said.

Revenue in the cable-network segment rose 10 percent from last year to $4.33 billion, while television revenue dropped to $1.00 billion from $1.04 billion, reflecting lower advertising revenue. Filmed entertainment segment decreased $235 million to $1.80 billion, primarily due to lower home entertainment revenues due to the strong performance of Deadpool in the prior year quarter.

"We delivered strong financial and operational momentum in fiscal 2017 driven by an acceleration in affiliate revenue growth which fueled fourth quarter cable segment OIBDA growth of 19%. The investment we have made in our video brands, and in programming that truly differentiates, is proving to be the right," Executive Chairmen Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch said.

FOXA closed Wednesday's trading at $27.51, down $0.20 or 0.72%, on the NYSE.