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Wall Street Predicts News Corp Will Score With Fox Sports 1

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday March 6, 2013 @ 7:53am PSTTags: Fox Sports 1, News Corp

I’ve been waiting to see if any analyst would slam News Corp’s decision to launch Fox Sports 1, the national general sports makeover for the company’s Speed channel. You can make a compelling case that the pay TV sports bubble is about to pop, especially if cable and satellite companies follow through on their threats to cut high-priced sports channels from the basic cable bundle. But the investment pros continue to bet that the current system will remain intact, and that Fox Sports 1 will be a winner. Several raised their target price for News Corp stock. The consensus view is that pay TV distributors will agree to pay about $1 a month for each subscriber — up from the the estimated 22 cents the company currently collects for Speed — raising affiliate revenues to $1.1B a year from $312M. News Corp will have several opportunities to push for higher rates: about 30% of its current pay TV deals expire by mid 2014, and another 40% will be due the following year, Barclays Equity research’s Anthony DiClemente notes. READ MORE »

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Fox Sports 1, Mike Tyson Team For New Cable Network Series

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Tuesday March 5, 2013 @ 1:14pm PSTTags: Fox Sports 1, Mike Tyson

Fox Sports 1 and boxing icon Mike Tyson today announced that their new series Being Mike Tyson will spearhead programming on the newly announced “national multi-sport network”. Tweeted @FoxSports: “The first big … Read More »

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Chase Carey: New Fox Sports Channel Will Lose Money While Company Raises Rates

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday March 5, 2013 @ 6:48am PSTTags: Chase Carey, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports Media Group

News Corp’s COO assured investors this morning that the introduction later today of the Fox Sports 1 cable network is a smart long term strategy, even though it will result in losses for the next few years. The company … Read More »

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Fox Sports 1 To Go Live In August; Regis Philbin To Host Show On National Cable Net

By NANCY TARTAGLIONE, International Editor | Tuesday March 5, 2013 @ 1:58am PSTTags: ESPN, Fox Sports 1, News Corp

The Fox Sports Media Group has an upfront presentation scheduled for this afternoon and is expected to use that platform to announce the launch of its first national cable sports network, Fox Sports 1. The all-sports network will go live in August, timed to the start of college football season and David Hill, the former head of the Fox Sports Media Group, has been brought in to oversee the creation and launch. Plans for the channel have been brewing for some time – News Corp. COO Chase Carey last month called it the “world’s worst kept secret” – but up to now details were scant including what sports the network would carry. According to The New York Times, Fox Sports 1 will have Nascar, Major League Baseball, college basketball and football, soccer (including the 2018 and 2022 World Cups) and UFC fights. Also, an in-studio show will be hosted by Regis Philbin who last week hinted at the prospect. Read More »

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Regis Philbin Promises “Major Announcement” With Fox Sports Next Week

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Wednesday February 27, 2013 @ 3:14pm PSTTags: Fox Sports, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports Media Group, Regis Philbin

What News Corp COO Chase Carey recently called the “world’s worst kept secret” – Fox’s still-unannounced plans to turn its Speed channel into a national general sports network called Fox Sports 1 — just became a little … Read More »

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A Fox National Sports Net Would Make Sense, But Wouldn’t Ding ESPN: Analyst

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday January 24, 2013 @ 7:11am PSTTags: ESPN, Fox Sports 1, News Corp

Nomura Equity Research’s Michael Nathanson does a nice job this morning of laying out the likely business arrangements for News Corp‘s still unannounced but widely expected plan to convert its Speed channel into a national network to be called Fox Sports 1, with Fuel to be rebranded as Fox Sports 2. Rupert Murdoch is betting on “what the company believes will be increasing value of live sports over the next couple of decades,” Nathanson says. Advertisers spent a record $13.3B on broadcast and cable sports last year, confident that viewers would watch them live — instead of recording the shows to zip past the commercials. News Corp’s sports initiatives also seem to make sense according to Nathanson’s calculations of pay TV fees: Speed and Fuel together collect about $300M a year. Under what the analyst calls his “blue sky scenario,” the company could see nearly $1.5B in additional revenue from cable and satellite companies (and, presumably, their customers) as Fox hikes their prices once the channels are rebranded. Read More »

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