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Programming Costs to Mar 21st Century Fox (FOXA) Q1 Earnings

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Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (FOXA - Free Report) is scheduled to report first-quarter fiscal 2018 results on Nov 8. In the previous quarter, the company’s earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by a margin of 5.9%. Notably, the company surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by an average of 10.6% in the trailing four quarters. Let’s see how things are shaping up prior to this announcement.

What to Expect?

The question lingering in investors’ minds now is whether Twenty-First Century Fox will be able to post positive earnings surprise in the quarter to be reported. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter under review is currently pegged at 49 cents, which reflects a year-over-year decline of nearly 4%. We note that the rate of decline is likely to decelerate from 20% witnessed in the preceding quarter. Analysts polled by Zacks anticipate revenues of $6,868 million compared with $6,506 million reported in the prior-year quarter.

Factors Influencing This Quarter

The performance of Cable Network Programming, which has been magnificent in fiscal 2015, 2016 and 2017 owing to rising affiliate fees is likely to impress investors in fiscal 2018 too. Management expects domestic affiliate fee to increase at least in high single-digit in all the quarters of fiscal 2018. Affiliate fees are a dominant source of revenues for the Cable Network segment and major contributor to total revenues. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues from affiliate fees is currently pegged at $3,140, up 7.4% year over year. Moreover, advertising revenues is also likely to increase 1.5% to $1,615 from the prior-year quarter.

Meanwhile, analyst surveyed by Zacks expects revenue from both Cable Network Programming and Filmed Entertainment segments to increase 8.5% and 52.7% to $4,133 million and $1,896 million, respectively. However, growth in both Cable Network Programming and Filmed Entertainment is likely to be partially offset by weakness in Television segment, which is expected to report revenues of $1,056 million compared with the prior-year quarter revenues of $1,907 million.

However, increase in cost at Cable Network Programming has been worrying investors. In fiscal 2017, Cable Network Programming costs increased 7% to $16,130 million. In fiscal 2018, the company anticipates cable network expenses to rise by approximately mid-single digit. The rise in expenses was mostly due to elevated sports programming costs. We believe that an increase in expenses due to higher sports programming costs may hurt the company’s margins and affect the bottom line.

Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

What Does the Zacks Model Unveil?

Our proven model does not conclusively show that Twenty-First Century Fox is likely to beat earnings estimates this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) for this to happen. You may uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Twenty-First Century Fox has an Earnings ESP of -2.98%. Although, the company’s Zacks Rank #3 increases the predictive power of ESP, we need to have a positive ESP to be confident about an earnings surprise.

Stocks Poised to Beat Earnings Estimates

Here are some companies you may want to consider as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat:

DISH Network Corporation has an Earnings ESP of +1.68% and a Zacks Rank #3.You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Walt Disney Company (DIS - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +1.37% and a Zacks Rank #3.

MSG Networks Inc. has an Earnings ESP of +0.31% and a Zacks Rank #3.

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