News Corp beats revenue estimates as digital subscriptions grow

News Corp beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter revenue on Thursday, boosted in part by digital subscription growth at its Dow Jones business.

The New York-based media giant — which owns The Post, The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones — said revenue in the quarter ended June 30 jumped 6% to $2.58 billion, compared to $2.43 billion a year earlier.

The company credited much of the revenue bump on 4% growth in its Dow Jones division, which includes The Journal, Barron’s and Market Watch.

Net income for the quarter totaled $71 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with a year-ago net loss of $32 million, or a penny a share. Adjusted EPS equaled 17 cents. Wall Street expected EPS of 16 cents on revenue of $2.49 billion.

For the year, News Corp reported profit of $266 million, or 46 cents a share. Revenue was $10.09 billion.

News Corp’s stock price closed at $27.76. It is up 11% in the last three months and a whopping 34% over the past year.

The company signed a multi-year partnership with London Stock Exchange Group last month and partnered with Sam Altman-led OpenAI in May.

“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,” News Corp CEO Robert 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. ‘Open source’ can never be a justification for ‘open slather.’”

The OpenAI deal will allow the ChatGPT creator to use current and archived content produced by News Corp-owned outlets to answer user questions and train its AI models.

The five-year deal could be worth more than $250 million in cash and credits for the use of OpenAI technology, the Wall Street Journal reported in May.

Thomson also thanks those who helped free Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who had been imprisoned in Russia since March 2023.

“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. Many thanks to our leaders at Dow Jones and News Corp, who campaigned vigorously for Evan, and to the US Government and other enlightened Governments, whose divine interventions played a pivotal role in his release.”