Comcast would have to be in the mix , as they previously bought Sky off News Corp in the UK.
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Seven and Nine should do a JV.
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Foxtel Group Fiscal 2024 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings
News Corp today released its Fiscal 2024 (FY24) Fourth Quarter (Q4) and Full Year Earnings for the 12 months ended 30 June 2024, including subscriber highlights for the Foxtel Group and financial results for the Subscription Video Services segment.
Commenting on the Foxtel Group at News Corpâs FY24 Q4 and Full Year Earnings Investor Briefing this morning, News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said: âAt Subscription Video Services, revenue in the quarter grew on both a reported and constant currency basis, as streaming strength more than offset broadcast declines. Audiences are continuing to transition from traditional broadcast to over-the-top consumption.â
Subscription Video Services Segment Highlights
- Adjusted [1] Q4 Revenues for the Subscription Video Services segment grew 2% year-on-year.
- Adjusted Full Year Revenues for the Subscription Video Services segment grew 1% year-on-year.
Key Foxtel Group Subscriber Metrics
Total Foxtel Group subscribers of 4.776 million (4.690 million paid), up 1% on year-on-year.
Total streaming subscribers, including Kayo Sports, BINGE and Foxtel Now reached 3.305 million (3.221 million paid), up 5% year-on-year
- Streaming subscribers represented approximately 69% of the Foxtel Groupâs total subscriber (66% in Q4 FY23)
- Kayo Sports reached 1.606 million subscribers (1.550 million paid), up 14%
- BINGE reached 1.552 million subscribers (1.529 million paid), up 1%
Foxtel residential and commercial broadcast subscribers were 1.452 million
- Foxtel Residential subscribers reached 1.210 million.
- Broadcast ARPU rose 6% year-on year to A$90
- Broadcast churn for the quarter was 11.7%
Mr Thomson continued: âWe believe Foxtel is particularly well-positioned for both subscriber and advertising growth as Kayo and Binge have gained traction given their unique strengths in sports and entertainment programming. Those two services added almost 200,000 paying subscribers in the quarter and digital advertising now represents more than 40 percent of Foxtelâs total advertising with Kayo growing 42 percent compared to the prior year and the recently rolled-out ad offering at BINGE growing fourfold. We will keep you updated on the advertising renaissance as the quarters unfold.â
âOur launch of the Hubbl service is still in its early days, but, encouragingly, more than 30 percent of Hubbl customers are new to Foxtel, which is significant, given our existing presence and profile in the Australian marketplace. About 75 percent of customers of the Hubbl aggregation service purchase an additional Foxtel product along with their device and subscription. On the broadcast side, ARPU grew 6 percent and churn was a pleasingly low 11.7 percent for the quarter. Foxtel continued to generate strong cash flow as we were able to monetise our long-term sports rights across multiple platforms.â
News Corp CFO Susan Panuccio added: âRevenues for the quarter were $506m dollars, up 1% compared to the prior year. On an adjusted basis, revenues rose 2% versus the prior year.
âStreaming revenues accounted for 32% of circulation and subscription revenues, versus 29% in the prior year. Total closing paid subscribers across the Foxtel Group were nearly 4.7 million at quarter-end, up 1% from the prior year.
âTotal paid streaming subscribers reached a record 3.2 million, increasing 5% versus the prior year and accounting for nearly 70% of the total paying subscriber base, with Kayo adding 108,000 subscribers and BINGE adding 76,000 compared to the prior quarter. This speaks to the success of our winter sport codes and strong entertainment content.
âFoxtel ended the quarter with over 1.2 million residential broadcast subscribers, down 10% year-over-year. Broadcast churn was 11.7% versus 11.1% in the prior year but down from over 13% last quarter, while Broadcast ARPU rose 6% to A$90 Australian dollars, benefiting from new pricing and packaging plans implemented in March. As a result, broadcast revenues declined at the lowest rate in constant currency in over five years.
âSegment EBITDA in the quarter of $74m dollars was down only $4m, or 5%, versus the prior year, despite including approximately $28m dollars of costs related to Hubbl for devices and marketing. Excluding the Hubbl investment, Foxtelâs profitability would have been higher for the quarter.â
On Outlook, Ms Panuccio said: âAt Subscription Video Services: We plan to continue to scale streaming products while retaining high value broadcast customers through improved ARPU and churn measures. While we anticipate the rate of investment at Hubbl to be lower in Fiscal 2025, we do expect modestly higher programming costs related to sports rights escalators.â
Data and quotes are sourced from News Corpâs FY24 Q4 and Full Year Earnings Announcement and Investor Briefing of 8 August 2024 (New York). Full details can be found at https://investors.newscorp.com
[1] Adjusted to remove the effect of currency fluctuations. News Corp calculates the impact of foreign currency fluctuations for businesses reporting in currencies other than the US dollar by multiplying the results for each quarter in the current period by the difference between the average exchange rate for that quarter and the average exchange rate in effect during the corresponding quarter of the prior year and totalling the impact for all quarters in the current period.
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It will either be Comcast or Disney. FOX Sports and Sky News , would they even be up for sale as it just may be Foxtel itself.
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Trevor Long at EFTM is guessing Optus
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It wonât happen, but I think it would be a good outcome for sport fans if AFL, NRL and Cricket Australia formed a consortium to buy Kayo.
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BSkyB was owned by News UK before it was sold off a few years ago
That would be a blast from the past if it happened. Will they rename it Optus Vision? 
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I would think Fox Sports would be up for sale as they are owned by Foxtel Group, whereas Sky News owned by News Corp.
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They could call it Optus Vision!
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Optus not a bad choice as they own the satellites at 156.0E (Optus D3/10). Could prolong the satellite service by up to a decade.
Unfortunately, I canât answer most of those questions. However, in my opinion, having Stan merge with Binge and Kayo merge with Stan Sport would make sense. Not to mention the potential of a Fox Sports/Wide World of Sports tie-up or the possibility of using Foxtel Networks Group to launch a Nine News-branded rival to Sky News Australia.
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Thatâs because they are hypothetical questions posed by @TVHead. 
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If itâs either of those, then itâs Comcast. Disney has shown itself to be completely over linear TV, between closing global pay TV channels like Disney Channel and various Fox-branded channels, or even seemingly wanting to sell up ABC US. I canât see them going for Foxtel.
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Little resistance from Foxtel when leaving today. I simply stated the price was double compared to what I can get Binge / Kayo for⌠I was then told that customers have been complaining about buffering and issues with steaming KAYO via internetâŚand that i need unlimited internet (who doesnât) and was going offer a discount of $10.
If only the rep knew my existing Foxtel IQ box was being run through an internet connection⌠we didnât choose to have a satellite dish, in which we donât experience any lag or interruption.
Least for a lower price Iâm getting more channels / content on Binge - just have to use my annoying LG remote which is horrible!
Options:
WBD could buy it, shut it all down and dump all the content into Max.
Nine could buy it, shut it all down and dump all the content and rights into Stan.
Paramount Global could buy it, shut it all down and dump all the content into P+.
All highly unlikely but probably the most desirable.
Foxtel as a brand is toxic and has got to go.
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It really isnât. Itâs just your pure hatred of NewsCorp etc.
Foxtel/ Binge/Kayo etc are very popular as proven today during the updates.
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I keep hearing that if youâre dropping Foxtel because you express an interest in moving to Binge or Kayo, theyâre not resisting because they see it as staying within the business. I know of one person who was offered a free Hubbl device.
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Ok - Staff Notice time
While we donât know a great deal about the specifics of any offer, little is gained by continual speculation.
Starting tomorrow, unless more information comes to light, posts will be removed if they are only speculating about who the buyer might be and what they might do with it.
(This is a consistent approach that weâve applied to other news stories)
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AFR have reported that the interest may be from US investment firm Platinum Equity:
It also reports that market analysts have welcomed the news, one opining that its unlikely few investors will âshed a tearâ if Foxtel is sold off, meanwhile others see opportunities for growth in other parts of Newsâ operations:
Angus Aitken from Aitken Mount noted that every dollar that News Corp could invest in Dow Jones would get a far higher uplift.
âFoxtel is a single digit EBITDA business, Dow Jones is a 25x business,â he wrote.
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