• by Wayne Friedman , February 6, 2017

Twentieth-First Century Fox posted strong quarterly advertising as a result of political advertising and sports, specifically the World Series. But this didn’t help its stock price during the day.

Overall, Fox reported that revenues, ending December 31, 2016, climbed 4.1% to $7.7 billion -- a bit under estimates. Net income grew 25% to $938 million. Mid-day Monday trading witnessed the stock sinking 2.5% before recovering a bit. It ended the day down 1% to close at $31.06.

Fox cable network programming revenue was up 7% to $3.97 billion. Advertising revenues played a big part: Domestic advertising revenue grew 12% on FX Networks, Fox Sports 1, Fox News and its regional sports networks -- especially from higher ratings at Fox News, due to the big political season.

Fox Sports 1 had good viewing from Major League Baseball playoff games.

Fox Television was 12% higher to $1.92 billion in revenue as a result of higher sports advertising, retransmission consent revenues, and higher content revenues at the Fox broadcast network -- as well as high local political advertising spending at its TV stations.

Fox Filmed Entertainment, its movies and TV production unit, was down 4% to $2.27 billion.

There were fewer theatrical movies released in the period, which was partially offset by higher TV production revenues from business with subscription video-on-demand services.