News Corporation’s first quarter earnings fell short of Wall Street’s expectations on lower-than-anticipated advertising sales, the company said Monday.
News Corp, which was split off from Rupert Murdoch’s television and film holdings last summer, posted revenue of $2.07 billion, a 3 percent decrease as compared to the $2.13 billion it reported the same quarter last year.
Net income for the three-month period ending in September was $38 million, or 5 cents per share, compared with the $83 million the company lost during the year-ago period.
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Analysts had projected News Corp. would report earnings of 5 cents per share on revenue of $2.18 billion. Its media holdings include the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Harper Collins.
“Our first quarter as the new News was the beginning of a journey in the digital development of the company,” Chief Executive Officer Robert Thomson said in a statement. “There are certainly headwinds in Australia, magnified by inauspicious foreign currency movements, but we have been consistently cost conscious and are transforming our publishing operations longer-term into multi-platform businesses. We are vigorously pursuing a strategy to improve our revenue prospects and we look forward to updating all in future quarters.”
Advertising revenues in News Corp.’s newspaper and information services holdings declined 12 percent for the period, while circulation and subscription revenues fell 6 percent. Overall, revenues for the division dropped 10 percent to $1.5 billion.
Shares of News Corp. fell nearly 3 percent to $17.26 in after-hours trading on Monday on the disappointing earnings results.