News Corp posted a better than expected 5% increase in revenue to $US2.24 billion, excluding Foxtel, for the December quarter.
The media group said the result was driven by growth at the Digital Real Estate Services, Book Publishing and Dow Jones segments
“News Corp had a fruitful quarter, qualitatively and quantitatively,” CEO Robert Thomson said.
Net income from continuing operations surged 58% to $US306 million.
In the News Media segment, revenue fell 2% to $US570 million mainly driven by lower revenues from the transfer of third-party printing revenue contracts to News UK’s joint venture with DMG Media and lower advertising revenue.
Advertising revenue was down 1.5% to $US385 million compared to the same three months last year.
News Corp said advertising conditions remain "difficult with limited visibility".
Digital revenues represented 39% of News Media segment revenue in the quarter, compared to 37% in the prior year, and represented 37% of the combined revenues of the newspaper mastheads.
Circulation and subscription revenues were flat as cover price increases, higher digital subscribers and the $5 million, or 2%, positive impact from foreign currency fluctuations were offset by lower print volumes.
Digital subscribers at News Corp Australia as of December 31 were 1,126,000 (979,000 for news mastheads), compared to 1,051,000 (940,000 for news mastheads) in the prior year.
“The three pillars of growth -- Digital Real Estate, Dow Jones and Book Publishing -- continued to expand Segment EBITDA robustly,” Thomson said
“We also saw the positive impact of rigorous cost discipline and digital development in the News Media segment, and our overall margin rose meaningfully compared to the prior year.
“With a keen eye on those core areas of growth, we took a significant step towards simplification with the agreement to sell Foxtel to DAZN, a premier global sports streaming provider, for a total enterprise value of A$3.4 billion.
“The agreement is tangible recognition of Foxtel’s successful digital transformation, and should surely benefit our shareholders, our partners at DAZN and all Australian sports fans.
“We are providing priceless content for Generative AI, and remain vigilant in our pursuit of degenerative AI.
“We are pleased with our partnership with OpenAI and hope that other companies in the segment take a similarly enlightened approach.
“Our legal action against the perplexing Perplexity is underway and we look forward with relish to document discovery.
“The sudden rise of DeepSeek is itself a salutary lesson for all AI players. Data centres, chips, and energy costs aside, we believe DeepSeek lacks the immediacy of trusted news and, ultimately, content will be king in the world of AI.”
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