News Corp Posts Most Profitable Quarter Since 2013
February 04 2021 - 8:43PM
Dow Jones News
By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
News Corp said net quarterly profit nearly tripled, driven by
strong growth at its book-publishing and digital real-estate
businesses as well as at Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones &
Co.
The New York-based media company, which owns the Journal,
HarperCollins Publishers and news organizations in the U.K. and
Australia, posted net profit of $231 million, or 39 cents a share,
in the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with $85 million, or 14
cents a share, a year earlier, thanks to improved performance and
lower operating expenses. Revenue slipped 2.6% to $2.41 billion,
primarily due to the loss of contributions from its
coupon-publishing unit, which was sold last year.
Chief Executive Robert Thomson said the latest quarter was the
company's most profitable in its current iteration, since it was
split off in 2013 from the entertainment business, an entity now
known as Fox Corp.
He also said Dow Jones had its largest quarterly profit since
News Corp acquired it in 2007, and that the long-struggling New
York Post had achieved a profit. "That is the first profit in
modern times, at the very least, for what was a chronic loss-making
masthead founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton," Mr. Thomson
said.
The company's book-publishing unit, HarperCollins Publishers,
posted a 23% revenue increase to $544 million, while segment
earnings jumped 65% to $104 million, led by such titles as Steve
Doocy's "The Happy in a Hurry Cookbook."
"HarperCollins had one of its most lucrative quarters, with
double-digit growth across every category," Mr. Thomson said.
News Corp calculates segment earnings as revenue less operating
and administrative expenses. Segment earnings exclude expenses such
as interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, impairment and
restructuring charges, and other items.
Dow Jones, the publisher of the Journal, Barron's and
MarketWatch, reported a 43% rise in segment earnings to $109
million, thanks to the highest digital-advertising growth rate in
10 years and increases in digital subscriptions. Revenue rose 3.7%
to $446 million, 70% of which came from digital revenue.
Dow Jones reported a 29% increase in digital-advertising
revenue, which was offset by a 29% decline in print-advertising
revenue. Overall, ad revenue slipped by 4%.
The Journal averaged more than 2.46 million digital subscribers
in the quarter, up from over 2.35 million in the September quarter.
Including the print edition, the Journal averaged 3.22 million
subscribers in the period, a record.
News Corp's other news publications, which include the New York
Post, the Sun and the Times in the U.K. and many papers in
Australia, posted a 29% decline in revenue to $573 million, while
segment earnings were flat at $66 million.
The company's digital real-estate services division reported a
15% gain in revenue to $339 million. Segment earnings increased 20%
to $142 million. The unit includes a majority stake in REA Group
Ltd., a publicly traded digital real-estate company, and an 80%
stake in Move Inc., an online real-estate business based in Santa
Clara, Calif., that primarily operates the website Realtor.com.
News Corp's subscription-video-services unit, which includes
Foxtel, an Australian pay-TV provider, posted a 77% rise in segment
earnings, thanks in part to lower sports programming rights and
production costs, as well as lower entertainment programming costs.
Revenue rose 2% to $511 million.
Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at
jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 04, 2021 20:28 ET (01:28 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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