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Foxtel hit by pubs, clubs closures

Residential & commercial subs are at 1.99m but the closure of clubs has hit revenue hard.

Last week’s financials from News Corporation included some key numbers on Foxtel in Australia.

As of June 30, 2020, Foxtel’s total closing paid subscribers were 2.777 million (including streaming platforms), a decrease of 12% compared to the prior year, primarily due to lower residential and commercial broadcast subscribers and lower Foxtel Now subscribers, partially offset by growth in subscribers at Kayo and the launch of Binge.

1.989 million of the total closing subscribers were residential and commercial broadcast Foxtel subscribers, and the remainder consisted of Kayo, Foxtel Now and Binge subscribers.

But ongoing disruption in pubs and clubs and occupancy at hotels throughout Australia, has adversely impacted commercial subscription revenues at approximately US$30 million, or 6%, and a US$23 million, or 4%, impact from lower advertising revenues.

As live sports resumed across Australia and elsewhere around the globe, Foxtel saw a modest improvement in advertising trends in July.

Broadcast subscriber churn in the quarter improved to 13.2% from 14.7% in the prior year, primarily reflecting various measures implemented due to COVID-19.

Regarding financing, CFO Susan Panuccio said “there are no plans for additional funding”.

Source: Mediaweek

3 Responses

  1. Wouldn’t be at all surprised to see more sports make the move to their own SVOD subscription services. The model where you have to buy a whole range of items just to get one or two things you want is disappearing. Can’t happen soon enough.

    1. The big money sports especially in Europe and the USA will be keeping themselves on mainstream linear TV where the multi-million dollar advertising revenue is.

  2. The continuing trend to cut cable, as they say in the USA, will also be a concern for Foxtel, selling set top box subscriptions will steadily be replaced by streaming subscriptions, it is inevitable technological progress.
    Foxtel don’t have any excuses for their prospective situation SVOD has been around for some time, now Mr. Murdoch has to decide what his role developing Foxtel as a high class streaming service will be, it will take some investment to include UHD 4K & Dolby Vision content which will be a standard before too long, But if Foxtel remains exclusively Australian it will be difficult.

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