News Corp revenue rises to $2.4B, powered by growth at Dow Jones, real estate divisions

Revenue for The Post’s parent company News Corp rose 5.5% to $2.36 billion in the second quarter of its fiscal year, with execs crediting the company’s Dow Jones and digital real estate divisions for the growth.

Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 came in slightly higher than analysts had expected, with EBITDA increasing 9% to $521 million.

“We are delighted to report excellent second quarter results with both revenue and profitability growth accelerating from the prior quarter, and we see favorable signs for the second half of our fiscal year,” News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said in a Thursday statement.

Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch, was also credited for helping power the previous quarter’s growth. This time around, revenues from Dow Jones rose 8% compared to the previous year, to $648 million.

Meanwhile, revenue from News Corp’s digital real estate services division went up 8% to $511 million.

The results came as news organizations and other publishers have been grappling with artificial intelligence.

Thomson has been urging AI firms to pay for the content they use, a message he repeated Thursday.

“It is clear that expectations of AI’s impact are continuing to evolve and that the more perceptive players have come to realize that provenance is paramount,” he stated. “What is the point of acquiring cutting-edge semiconductors if they are being deployed to repurpose gormless, factless, feckless content sets? 

“We do believe an increasing number of insightful companies understand this content contradiction and will indeed pay a premium for our premium content. This quarter we expanded our partnership with Bloomberg to include AI rights for our unique Dow Jones content and are progressing with other negotiations.”