• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

With the upfront TV market approaching, continued strength at Fox News Media has executives believing there is more room to grow in advertising revenue -- as well as for the company overall.

“Right now, we are underpriced against broadcast about 50%,” says John Nallen, president/COO of Fox Corp., speaking with Deutsche Bank AG on Monday. ”So that's the opportunity on pricing for Fox News to continue to move up in pricing, and we've seen that.”

Nallen says that currently, in the near-term scatter market, “we've seen high single-digit increases in national rates at Fox News. We've seen DR [direct response advertiser] rates [up] mid-single digits... We’ve attracted more and more advertisers to Fox News, not only linear but digital as well.”

Fox News Media has seen seven quarters in a row of advertising-revenue growth.

The group includes Fox News Channel, Fox Business, Fox Nation, Fox Weather, and digital platforms.

Heading into the upfront TV/streaming selling season, he says, the advertising market at Fox Corp. overall -- including Fox Television Network and Tubi -- is “really healthy, adding: “The scatter pricing is up, the amount of options that are taken is quite low from cancellations, from advertisers, from the upfront.”

He adds that nine of Fox’s top 10 categories are higher -- including finance, pharmaceutical and technology. The only one that is down is entertainment.

For the rest of the year he forecasts strong activity for Fox Television Stations due to the midterm political elections.

Overall, he believes the market “will be a record breaker,” citing $11 billion estimates for all advertising media in the period -- with the heaviest money going to local TV stations and digital platforms.