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Awful Announcing, Ad Age, TVWeek

How Fox Pulled In $100 Million in Ad Revenues in 16 Hours

Nov 6, 2015  •  Post A Comment

Fox just had a huge day of ad sales — its most lucrative day in history, by some accounts, not including Super Bowl days or NFC Championships. Fox CEO James Murdoch told investors this week that Fox brought in more than $100 million on a day when the network carried a huge block of sports programming.

Awful Announcing reports that Sunday, Nov. 1, was the network’s most viewed day outside of the Super Bowl. From 9 a.m. ET Sunday to 1:12 a.m. ET Monday, Fox aired three NFL games and the deciding Game 5 of the World Series.

The sports lineup kicked off with an NFL clash in London between Detroit and Kansas City, followed by an NFL regional window at 1 p.m. ET, then the Seattle-Dallas NFL battle and a prime-time telecast of the World Series finale.

“The Seattle at Dallas game is the most-watched NFL game of the season with 29.4 million viewers. World Series Game 5 between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets averaged 17.2 million,” the report notes.

Fox Sports broke down the big day by minutes of viewing, reporting that more than 16 billion minutes of sports was consumed on the channel during the day.

Said Murdoch, on the earnings call: “We had a really tremendous day of sports on the network and on FS1. And all in, it was a $100 million day. So that’s pretty good.”

In a press release, Fox Sports President Eric Shanks noted that live programming remains a big draw. Said Shanks: “We were on the air for more than 16 hours from two continents and nine different cities, and a day like Sunday proves that live big-event sports television is still the best option to attract sizable audiences over an extended period of time.”

Ad Age notes that sports programming has been producing more than one-third of all broadcast revenue.

“Sunday’s most visible advertisers were World Series sponsor Chevrolet, Samsung Mobile, Ford, Geico and Southwest Airlines,” Ad Age notes. “FanDuel and DraftKings maintained a much lower profile than in recent weeks, investing in just seven spots apiece over the course of Fox’s broadcast day.”

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