Fox has reached the finish line of the 2025-26 upfront cycle.
Today, ADWEEK learned that Fox has officially closed its upfront discussions, achieving double-digit volume growth across its portfolio.
“The Fox portfolio of industry-leading sports, news, and entertainment content delivered double-digit revenue growth in the upfront for the second year in a row,” Jeff Collins, president of advertising sales, marketing, and brand partnerships, Fox, said in a statement. “Unprecedented audience growth across the Fox portfolio has driven better outcomes for our trusted client partners. We thank them for their continued commitment and remain dedicated to making every second of their investment with us count.”
According to a source familiar with the matter, Fox achieved double-digit volume growth across all sports properties compared with the previous year. Meanwhile, core sports properties (excluding the World Cup) exceeded $2 billion for the first time.
The source noted that Fox saw strong pricing growth across its portfolio, with standout categories including CPG, pharma, and financial.
Ad-supported platform Tubi had year-over-year volume growth of over 35%, driven by total viewing time and monthly active users. At the end of June, Tubi announced that it had exceeded 100 million monthly active users for the first time.
News had double-digit growth and what the source said was “category-leading pricing,” driven by record audience growth. News also had double-digit growth in new blue-chip advertiser and existing blue-chip advertiser commitments.
Meanwhile, on the entertainment side, Fox achieved increased sell-outs and also saw strong pricing growth.
With the topic of late-night being thrust into the spotlight following the news of CBS canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last week, the source said Fox continues to see very strong audience revenue and new advertiser growth for its late-night comedy talk show, Gutfeld!, which continues to post strong ratings, regularly bringing in more than 3 million total viewers.
Like NBCUniversal, which was the first major publisher to close its upfront talks last week, Fox did not disclose its total dollar volume or specific changes in CPMs (cost per thousand viewers reached). The 2022-23 upfront season was the last year that sources revealed CPMs for Fox’s advertising deals, which showed increases of around 9% to 12%.
