The main summer sports for Australian broadcasters are cricket and the Australian Open tennis. The ICC Men's World Cup, for example, attracted record audiences on Foxtel – an average of 223,000 and 494,000 people for the grand final between Australia and India. There were 2.5 million streams on Kayo to watch Travis Head lead Australia to victory.
Cricket involving India and England tends to attract the most live and television viewers. This year, the Australian men's cricket team will play the West Indies and then Pakistan from December 14; The women's team will play against South Africa from the end of January.
In its most recent corporate filings, Foxtel reported that its content costs rose $114 million to $1.5 billion in the 12 months ended June 30. However, even larger obligations will arise in the coming years as part of new sports rights contracts.
There were 2.5 million streams on Kayo to watch Travis Head lead Australia to victory in the recent ICC World Cup. `
Foxtel has committed to Australian cricket and AFL sports until 2031. The new cricket contract will cost the company almost $140 million per year, starting with the 2024/25 season through 2030/31. Late last year, Foxtel and Seven signed a $4.5 billion broadcast deal with the AFL.
At the global media event, Mr Delany said the company had learned “extreme cost discipline”. “We’re pretty good at that,” he said. Foxtel cut more than 250 employees last year and reported a workforce of 1,558 at the end of the 2023 financial year, compared to more than 1,800 the year before.
In addition, the company would continue to exploit its 1.5 million residential and commercial set-top box customers for as long as possible, “squeezing” them for revenue.
“We haven’t used it for subscriber numbers in a long time,” Mr. Delany said. “By and large it's older Australians who are wealthy…we will continue to squeeze out as much revenue as we can.”
The company recently unveiled Hubbl, its new Puck product that bundles multiple streaming services into a single bill. Mr. Delany is CEO of Foxtel Group and Hubbl.
Susan Pannuccio, News Corp's global chief financial officer, told analysts last month that Foxtel expected “slightly higher expenses” in fiscal 2024 due to sports rights and costs related to the Hubbl launch.
Offers are created depending on the customers' willingness to pay. “We will introduce dynamic pricing with AI in winter next season, which should go well,” he said at the global media summit.
The company has hired pricing, yield and AI specialists to “optimize the performance of 1:1 personalized dynamic pricing.”
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