It will be a new and nimbler Fox traversing the UpFronts and Cannes this year, evangelizing live events and enabling “the right mix of methodology and optimization” for audience targeting. “We are excited about the new portfolio,” Dan Callahan says of Fox Corp. following the sale of film and television assets to Walt Disney Co.
“It does tie itself to emotional, meant to be viewed live events that create water cooler talk or social moments where people are interacting on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,” adds Callahan, the VP of Audience & Automated Sales. “We feel like the new company is designed for that live happens now, it’s in the moment and it only happens once.”
Whether it’s live linear or live connected-TV, “we feel like that’s the most valuable viewing destination for our team to monetize.”
Fox News is the fuel for the new corporation, driving an estimated 70% of profit, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Heading into another contentious U.S. election cycle should help drive ads and viewing at the network.
Fox’s apps “continue to be extremely strong,” says Callahan. “People are finding Fox Sports Go through baseball season. Football season last year was gangbusters for us.”
Discussing distribution partners, he notes that programmers have typically retained 87% of advertising inventory while MVPD’s and other distribution endpoints get 13%. In its relationship with Hulu, “Fox has owned the ad insertion on ninety percent of the ad inventory within the Hulu footprint.” Even though Fox is no longer a co-owner of Hulu, the streaming service “still represents a great digital footprint for us with their growing number of subscribers.”
Asked about the local TV landscape, Callahan says companies like TEGNA Premion “are growing competitors. There’s a number of different local market makers that are growing into what is really a national footprint at this point. TEGNA Premion, any of those guys are a must watch, a must coordinate with, partner with where appropriate.”
Meanwhile, Sinclair Broadcasting’s purchase of Fox’s 21 regional sports networks from Disney “shows how serious they’re taking regional businesses and building a national footprint on it.”
With regard to the UpFronts this month and the Cannes Lions event in June, Callahan says to expect from Fox “A nimble willingness to partner with brands and agencies in ways that we had not before. It’s a much leaner organization where we can quickly get things up to the top, approved.”
This video is part of a series about the emergence of OTT as an advertising platform. For more interviews, please visit this page. This series is presented by Premion.
