• by Wayne Friedman , March 1, 2024

With the possibility of a new sports streamer posing a major threat to its business, the sports-focused pay TV distributor, FuboTV, said its fourth-quarter revenue grew 30%, with its subscriber base rising 12%.

Fubo ended the quarter with 1.6 million paid subscribers and $402 million in total revenue. 

Revenue grew 15% in the period to $38.6 million -- amid what the company (and some analysts) says was a “challenged” market in the second half of 2023.

The company also reported an all-time high of $86.65 average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) -- up 15% from a year ago. Fubo says it narrowed its net loss to $71 million from $95.9 million.

Fubo projects revenue of between $365 million and $375 million for the first quarter and between $1.51 billion to $1.53 billion for all of 2024 -- a 13% gain year-over-year.

In remarks to analysts during the fourth-quarter earnings phone all David Gandler, co-founder and CEO of FuboTV, reiterated the company’s criticism  of Walt Disney, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery cited in its lawsuit against the companies for their “anticompetitive” and “pernicious practices” when it comes to those companies sky high licensing rates Fubo pays when making deals for those linear TV networks that appear on its pay TV platform for sports programming content. 

Licensing rates can be 30% to 50% higher than other distributors like Hulu and YouTube which received lower effective contract rates.

With regard to the companies' efforts to launch a new premium sports-focused streamer, Gandler said:

“We assert that this (joint venture) is an attempt to monopolize the sports streaming industry and eliminate competition.” He added this could result in “billions of dollars in damage to our business.”