News Corp’s Q2 results reveal revenue is down by $40m from last year, sitting at $2.16bn, with a loss of $219m comparted to a $109m profit in the same quarter last year.
The company says ‘headwinds in print advertising’ has led to lower revenues, however the company believes that print will continue to be a core operation and says growth is occurring.
Robert Thomson, chief executive, News Corp, says, “Audiences are craving integrity, which is why so many of our mastheads have reported strong growth in readers and subscribers this quarter. Advertisers need a trusted canvas and real results, not the muddled, muddied metrics of many digital platforms.”
The divide between print and digital revenues for News Corp’s news and information branches grew smaller, with 27 per cent coming from digital this year, up from 22 per cent in the previous year, however, revenue is down by $97m for this quarter to $1.3bn, 7 per cent lower than last year.
Loss of income from continuing operations for the quarter was $219m, compared to a positive $106m in the previous year. The company says that this includes a write-down of the fixed assets at its Australian newspapers, alongside the company lowering the cost of Foxtel.
News Corp’s second quarter EBITDA overall is $325m, compared to last year’s $280m.
This includes an advertising revenue decrease of 9 per cent, which drops to 8 per cent when factoring negative currency fluctuations. This quarter’s EBITDA is $16m, down 10 per cent from the previous year.
Revenues in this quarter for News Corp’s digital real estate services increased $34m, up 16 per cent from the prior year. The segment’s EBITDA for the quarter increased $22m, or 30 per cent from last year.
Thomson says, “Our core platform has been bolstered by our rapid expansion in digital real estate, which is well on the way to becoming the largest contributor to our profitability. This segment posted another very strong quarter, with a 16 per cent year-over-year revenue increase, improved margins and robust audience gains.”
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