News Corp revenues boosted by Dow Jones and books

News Corporation beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter revenue driven by growth in its digital real estate services, Dow Jones and book publishing divisions.

The media and information services group, which owns publications including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Australian and The Sun, reported that revenue in the three months to the end of December rose 3 per cent to $2.59 billion compared with $2.52 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Net income was $183 million against $94 million previously.

Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, said: “We had particularly robust results across the three core pillars of our business — Dow Jones, Book Publishing and Digital Real Estate Services — and believe there are strong prospects for further growth as difficult macro conditions ease in some of our markets.”

He added: “We expect to be a core content provider for Generative AI companies, who need the highest quality, timely content to ensure the relevance and accuracy of their products. We patently prefer negotiation to litigation, courtship to courtrooms. But let’s be clear, in my view those who repurpose without approval are stealing and are undermining the very act of creativity — counterfeiting is not creating, and the AI world is replete with content counterfeiters.”

News Corp said that quarterly revenues at its digital real estate services division increased by 9 per cent to $419 while revenues at Dow Jones were up 4 per cent at £584 million driven by growth in circulation and subscription revenues particularly in professional information business products. Digital revenues at Dow Jones in the quarter represented 78 per cent of total revenues compared with 76 per cent a year ago.

In the news media division, revenues at News Corp Australia fell 6 per cent, driven by lower advertising revenues, while News UK was flat as lower advertising revenues were offset by a 5 per cent positive impact from foreign currency fluctuations and higher circulation and subscription revenues.

At the end of December, The Times and Sunday Times closing digital subscribers, including the Times Literary Supplement, were 575,000, compared with 550,000 in the previous year.

Revenues in book publishing were up 4 per cent at $550 million primarily driven by the increase in digital book sales and improved returns. Key titles in the quarter included The Pioneer Woman Cooks — Dinner’s Ready! by Ree Drummond, The Little Liar by Mitch Albom, Tom Lake by Ann Patchett and My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee.

News Corp shares rose 7.3 per cent, or $1.85, to $27.15 in after-hours trading and touched a peak of $28.00 to hit new record intraday high on Thursday.