Fox Profit Tops Estimates

(RTTNews) - Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (FOXA, FOX) on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected third-quarter profit, on growth at its cable and film entertainment business, partly offset by the absence of Super Bowl as well as currency headwinds.

"In the fiscal third quarter, we delivered double-digit affiliate revenue growth at our cable networks and continued our strong operating performance at our film studio," said CEO Rupert Murdoch in a statement.

Fox posted quarterly net earnings of $975 million or $0.46 per share, compared with $1.05 billion or $0.47 per share last year.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.42 per share.

On average, 25 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimated earnings of $0.39 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Fox said its revenues for the third quarter dropped to $6.84 billion from $8.22 billion in the prior year, as it sold its Direct Broadcast Satellite Television businesses, Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland AG to Sky Plc (SKYB.L) in November 2014.

Twenty-three analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $6.89 billion for the quarter.

The company's adjusted revenues rose to $6.84 billion from $6.76 billion in the prior year.

Revenue in the cable-network segment rose 14 percent from last year to $3.59 billion, due to growth in affiliate revenue, Fox said.

Revenue in the filmed entertainment segment increased 5 percent to $2.39 billion, partly due to the theatrical releases of "Taken 3" and "Kingsman: The Secret Service."

Television revenue fell to $1.24 billion from $1.59 billion the year earlier, hurt by the absence of the Super Bowl.

FOXA closed Wednesday at $33.68, down $0.24 or 0.71%, on a volume of 18.4 million shares on the Nasdaq. In after hours, the stock gained $0.27 or 0.80% at $33.95. In the past year, the stock has traded in the range of $31.01 - $39.27.