21st Century Fox-A (NASDAQ:FOXA) reported its first-quarter results Thursday.
For its most recent full three-month period, the company announced cable revenue of $3.81 billion, which is a 10% year-over-year increase. Full revenue came in at $6.51 billion, marking a 7% increase year-over-year, also beating estimates of $6.49 billion.
Twenty-First Century Fox earned 44 cents per share over the quarter, which is 10 cents higher than the year-ago quarter’s totals. Fox News did especially well as it is the most watched cable news network and it has had strong ratings since its CEO Roger Ailes has left–he was accused of sexually harassing some of the female anchors on the show, including Megyn Kelly.
Its cable network programming segment increased 6% to $1.38 billion, thanks to a 10% increase on higher affiliate and advertising revenues. This success could be partially attributed to improved programming offerings in Latin America and India due to the year’s broadcast of the Rio Olympics.
Fox CEO James Murdoch told analysts that he expects the company to have strong ratings during the presidential election. The company’s film division also popped 6.8% year-over-year, thanks to the success of a number of films including Independence Day: Resurgence and X-Men: Apocalypse.
Additionally, Twenty-First Century Fox revealed that its programming segment included revenue and costs of about $85 million in relation to the results from its National Geographic non-channels businesses, which it acquired in November 2015.
FOXA shares gained 6.9% Thursday afternoon.
