News Corp. on Thursday reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations, helped by digital subscriber growth at its Dow Jones business.
The New York-based media giant, which owns The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newspapers, said revenue for the quarter ended June 30 rose 6 percent to $2.58 billion, from $2.43 billion in the same period last year.
The company attributed most of the revenue increase to 4% growth in its Dow Jones division, which includes The Journal, Barron’s and MarketWatch.
Net income for the quarter was $71 million, or 9 cents a share, down from a net loss of $32 million, or 1 cent a share, a year ago. Adjusted EPS was 17 cents. Wall Street was expecting EPS of 16 cents on revenue of $2.49 billion.
News Corp. reported profit of $266 million, or 46 cents a share, for the year on revenue of $10.09 billion.
News Corp shares closed at $27.76, up 11% in the past three months and a whopping 34% in the past year.
The company signed a multi-year partnership with the London Stock Exchange Group last month and partnered with Sam Altman-led OpenAI in May.
“Our groundbreaking agreement with Open AI will not only deliver benefits, but also enable us to work closely with a trusted and exceptional partner to shape the future of professional journalism and provenance,” News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said.
“Meanwhile, we have begun taking legal action against the bad aggregators and AI actors who are predatory expropriating our content. ‘Open source’ never justifies ‘open exploitation.'”
The deal with OpenAI will allow ChatGPT’s creators to use current and archived content produced by News Corp-affiliated media outlets to answer user questions and train their AI models.
The Wall Street Journal reported in May that the five-year deal could be worth more than $250 million in cash and royalties on OpenAI technology.
Thompson also thanked those who helped secure the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia since March 2023.
“I want to express my sincere gratitude to all those who contributed to Evan Gershkovich’s release,” Thompson said.
“His release was made possible by the concerted efforts of concerned, principled people who recognized that his imprisonment was unjust and immoral. We are deeply grateful to the leaders at Dow Jones and News Corp, who campaigned tirelessly on Evan’s behalf, and to the U.S. government and other wise governments, whose divine intervention played a vital role in securing his release.”
