• by Wayne Friedman , February 8, 2016

The Fox network pulled in “low double-digit advertising growth” as part of parent 21st Century Fox’s fiscal second-quarter financial results.

Fox benefited from higher pricing and bigger audiences for NFL programming, as well as improved fourth-quarter viewership, due to big second-year drama “Empire.” For weeks now, senior TV network executives have talked up the strong fourth- and first-quarter TV scatter markets.

But there was also lower local TV political advertising revenue at Fox TV stations. Overall, advertising revenue at 21st Century Fox was up 4%. Total broadcast TV revenues climbed 6% to $1.7 billion.

Cable networks grew at a lower rate of advertising growth during the period, at 3%.

While Fox gained good ad results from Fox News Channel and its regional sports networks -- due to the NBA programming -- it suffered a bit from lower advertising revenues at its FX Networks.

Total cable network revenue was up 9% to $3.7 billion, largely due to domestic affiliate revenue from Fox News and sports network, FS1, improving 10%.

Fox filmed entertainment suffered -- down 14% to $2.4 billion -- primarily due to lower worldwide home entertainment revenues. Fox had difficult comparisons to last year’s big numbers from “X-Men: Days of Futures Past” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”

Revenues at 21st Century Fox were down 8% to $7.38 billion, with net income $748 million versus $6.3 billion for the same period a year before.

Fox stock closed down 2% to $24.54 on Monday; after market trading witnessed Fox losing another 2%.