News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, posted a 6% increase year-over-year in revenue of $2.58 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2024, reporting net income of $71 million attributed to growth in its digital real estate services, book publishing and Dow Jones segments.
Here are the top-line results:
Net income: $71 million vs. a net loss of $32 million in Q4 of 2023.
Revenue: $2.58 billion, up 6% compared to $2.43 billion in 2023. That beat revenue estimated at $2.53 billion from analysts from Zack’s Investment Research.
Earnings Per Share: Adjusted EPS were 17 cents vs. 15 cents estimated by Zacks.
Subscriptions: Dow Jones digital-only subscriptions grew 16% year-over-year to over 5.2 million.
In the fourth quarter earnings release, CEO Robert Thompson touted News Corp.’s multi-year deal with OpenAI, inked in May, for both content licensing and product development.
“Our landmark agreement with OpenAI is not only expected to be lucrative, but will enable us to work closely with a trusted, pre-eminent partner to fashion a future for professional journalism and for provenance,” Thomson said.
“Meanwhile, we have begun to take legal steps against AI aggressors, the egregious aggregators, who are predatory in the confiscation of our content,” he added. “‘Open source’ can never be a justification for ‘open slather.’”
News Corp. publications included in the partnership are limited to The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, The New York Post, MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily FN, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, and some more of the company’s Australian and UK-based outlets.
In Thursday’s results, the Dow Jones segment increased revenues 4% over 2023, driven by growth in circulation and subscription revenues. The professional information business served as the largest contributor to segment profitability, which News Corp. attributed to revenue growth at Risk & Compliance and Dow Jones Energy.
Digital revenues at Dow Jones in the quarter represented 81% of total revenues, up from 79% last year.
Book Publishing revenues grew 15% driven by higher book sales and improved return rates. The quarter also marked the first time that digital audiobooks revenue surpassed e-books revenue.
Total average subscriptions to Dow Jones products topped 5.8 million, an 11% increase over last year. Digital-only subscriptions grew 16% to over 5.2 million. Total subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal increased 7% year-over-year, reaching nearly 4.3 million average subscriptions. Digital-only WSJ subscriptions grew 11% to nearly 3.8 million.
Dow Jones also saw 12% growth in digital advertising revenues, partially offsetting a continued decline in print advertising revenues. Digital advertising accounted for 66% of total advertising revenues in the quarter, up from 60% in 2023.
During Thursday’s earnings call, Thomson remarked on the return of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was freed from Russia in a prisoner swap just over a week ago.
“I would like to express our sincere gratitude to all who contributed to the emancipation of Evan Gershkovich,” Thomson said. “His freedom was made possible by the concerted efforts of concerned, principled people who recognized that his incarceration was unjust and immoral.”
The News Corp. CEO thanked leaders at both Dow Jones and News Corp, “who campaigned vigorously for Evan, and to the U.S. Government and other enlightened Governments, whose divine interventions played a pivotal role in his release.”
