Fox (FOXA) & Charter Communications Extend Distribution Deal

Fox Corporation (NASDAQ:FOXA) and Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR) recently announced the renewal of a multi-year distribution agreement. Per the agreement, the former will continue delivering news, entertainment and sports content to latter’s customers.

Charter’s distribution of Fox’s network will include FOX Television Stations, FOX News Channel, FOX Business Network, FS1, FS2, BTN and FOX Deportes.

The agreement also comes with Charter’s rights to video-on-demand and TV Everywhere networks, enabling subscribers to access Fox’s live and on-demand programing through the FOX NOW, FOX Sports and FOX News apps.

Moreover, the deal also includes mutual efforts to cooperate on mitigating privacy. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Program Strength, Ad Dollars to Aid the Top Line

Fox is expected to benefit from its carriage deals with Charter, Cox Communications and DISH Network (NYSE:DIS) .

Recently, the company cleared disputes and renewed its agreement with Dish Network in the midst of the NFL Sunday Football season and the start of the post-season baseball.

Moreover, Fox Sports Regional Networks also renewed its distribution agreement with COX Communications for its portfolio of channels.

These deals expand Fox’s content offerings and boost user engagement levels, thereby attracting advertising dollars.

Fox’s investment in popular sports and entertainment helps it to provide a holistic and differentiated experience to its users, keeping them engaged to its stations.

Fox’s popular sports programming lineup includes NFL Thursday Night Football and Sunday games, MLB, NASCAR, MLS and the soon-to-be-launched WWE’s Friday Night Smackdown.

Additionally, Fox’s array of primetime programs includes reality competition series The Masked Singer and Master Chef. Empire, 9-1-1 and The Resident in drama category, Last Man Standing and Family Guy in comedy are also widely enjoyed by viewers. Prodigal Son and Almost Family are some of the shows in its pipeline.

Notably, the company reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2019 revenues of $2.51 billion, up 5% from the year-ago quarter, which was primarily attributed to affiliate and advertising revenue growth.

Advertising segment (36.5% of total revenues) contributed $918 million in revenues driven by higher digital advertising sales at FOX News.

Moreover, Fox is benefiting from deals with multiple streaming services providers including the likes of Disney (NYSE:DIS) owned Hulu.

Per the Wall Street Journal report, Fox is offering content on Hulu’s live TV service in up to 70 markets, including Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Birmingham, Alabama among others.

Other streaming TV services that have deals with Fox include DirecTV Now, Sling TV, YouTube TV and FuboTV. However, Fox is yet to reach streaming deals with its affiliates and station groups.

Zacks Rank

Currently, Fox Corporation has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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