News Corp. Profit Tops Street, But Revenue Misses

(RTTNews) - News Corp. (NWS, NWSA), the company owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, Tuesday said its fourth-quarter earnings trumped Wall Street's expectations, however, revenues fell short of estimates, largely due to poor demand for print advertising.

The New York-based media company reported a fourth-quarter loss of $430 million or $0.74 per share, compared to a profit of $89 million or $0.15 per share last year.

Adjusted earnings were $65 million or $0.11 per share, up from $61 million or $0.10 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.10 per share.

Revenues for the quarter dropped 7 percent to $2.08 billion from $2.23 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $2.10 billion.

Revenue at key news and information services segment, which includes Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, declined 10 percent from a year ago to $1.28 billion. Among smaller segments, book publishing slipped 6 percent; digital real estate jumped 10 percent, and cable network programming decreased 5 percent.

Chief Executive Robert Thomson said, "Fiscal 2017 was a significant year for News Corp as we saw tangible improvement in profitability, powered by the fast-growing Digital Real Estate Services segment, and we charged a premium for premium content while focusing on operating efficiencies."

Advertising revenue for the company's news and information services dropped 12 percent from the year-ago quarter, hurt largely by a weak print advertising.

Digital revenues represented to 26 percent of News and Information Services segment revenues, compared to 23 percent last year. The company said that the Wall Street Journal's average daily digital subscribers rose to 1.27 million, up from 948,000 year over year.

News Corp separated itself in 2013 after Rupert Murdoch spun off its more profitable entertainment and TV assets into Twenty-First Century Fox (FOX, FOXA).

NWS closed Thursday's trading at $13.68, down $0.49 or 3.46% on the NYSE. The stock, however, gained $0.09 or 0.68% in the after-hours trade.