Foxtel’s streaming services now house 62% of total subscribers
Following the release of News Corporation’s earnings this morning, Foxtel reported its second-quarter fiscal year 2023 result, attributing 62% of total accounts to streaming subscribers.
The percentage sat at 56% for the corresponding period last year. As highlighted in the News Corp results, total Foxtel Group subscribers reached 4.414 million (4.329 million paid) in the quarter ending December 2022. Foxtel is owned 65% by News Corp Australia and 35% by Telstra.
Foxtel’s streaming services include Kayo, Binge and Foxtel Now. All three combines have reached 2.758 million subscribers (2.678 million paid), up 25% year-on-year (YoY).
Binge saw the biggest subscription growth percentage YoY, up 48% to reach 1.439 million subscribers (1.375 million paid). Kayo Sports reached 1.136 million subscribers (1.126 million paid), up 11%.
Foxtel Now, however, had 183,000 subscribers (177,000 paid), down 16%.
News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said in the investor briefing this morning: “Our sports programming portfolio has been enhanced with the renewal of Australian cricket rights to 2031.
“We are now on the cusp of the peak selling season for Kayo as the Australian football and rugby league seasons which will start imminently, and we solidified our entertainment offerings, with an expanded, multi-year content deal with NBCU.”
Foxtel’s residential and commercial broadcast subscribers were 1.631 million, down 8%. Broadcast ARPU rose 2% to A$83 YoY.
News Corp CFO Susan Panuccio added: “Broadcast churn improved sequentially and year-over-year to 12.9%, despite the migration of cable subscribers to streaming or satellite. At quarter-end, less than 80,000 subscribers remained on cable as Foxtel continues to migrate subscribers from cable by fiscal year-end.”
Looking into the next quarter, Panuccio was optimistic: “We are very encouraged by the year-to-date performance and continue to expect the Foxtel Group’s profitability in local currency for the full year to be relatively stable.
“Profitability will be skewed to the fourth quarter as we expect third quarter costs to be higher in local currency compared to the prior year given the contractual escalators and expanded content from the AFL and NRL.”
Talking to Mumbrella last week, CEO of Foxtel Group Mark Frain said the company is ready for the launch of Binge’s ad-supported tier at the end of the March quarter.
“If I was to make a prediction, that in terms of ad revenue and success, Binge will probably achieve what Kayo has done in half the time, given the sentiment of the market kind of taken to it already,” he said.
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Darcy Song is a reporter at Mumbrella, covering media owners, adtech and social platforms. She joined in March 2022 as an editorial assistant.
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