Q1 2025 News Corp Earnings Call
Welcome to News Corp's fiscal first quarter 2025 earnings call. We issued our earnings press release about 30 minutes ago and it's now posted on our website at newscorp.com.
I'm going to call up to you Robert Thompson, Chief Executive, and Susan Panuccio, Chief Financial Officer. We will open with some prepared remarks, and I'll be happy to take questions from the investment community.
This call may include certain forward-looking information with respect to Newscorp's business and strategy.
Actual results could differ materially from what is said. News Corp's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ and contain cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information.
Additionally, this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measurements such as total segment EBITDA, adjusted segment EBITDA, and adjusted EPS.
Speaker Change: The definitions and gap to non-gap reconciliations of such measures can be found in the earnings release for the applicable periods posted on our website. With that, I'll pass over to Robert Thompson for some opening comments.
Robert Thompson: Thank you, Mike. There is no doubt we have begun fiscal 2025 robustly, with record first quarter revenue and record first quarter profitability.
Robert Thompson: Revenue rose 3% year-over-year to $2.58 billion while profitability surged 14% to $415 million.
Robert Thompson: Our profit margin rose from 14.6 percent a year ago to 16.1 percent and recurring circulation and subscription revenues continued to expand as our reliance on a sometimes volatile advertising market has declined markedly.
Robert Thompson: Our net income jumped from $58 million last year to $144 million and our EPS was $0.21 compared to $0.05 in the same quarter last year.
Robert Thompson: That we have achieved these record first-quarter results in macro conditions, which were far from auspicious, tells much about the successful transformation of News Corp over the past decade.
Robert Thompson: Meanwhile, the just-completed election has highlighted the importance of trusted journalism in a media maelstrom in which some journalists routinely mistake virtue signaling for virtue.
Artificial intelligence harvests and recycles informational infelicities.
Robert Thompson: and so it is critical that journalist inputs have integrity which is why our partnership with OpenAI is so crucial and why we will certainly seek to challenge AI companies misusing and abusing our trusted journalism
Robert Thompson: We have indicated in the past that we would prefer to woo rather than sue artificial intelligence companies, hence the alliance with open AI, but we have reached a point where litigation is also essential.
Robert Thompson: Dow Jones and the New York Post have started proceedings against the perplexing perplexity which is selling products based on our journalism and we are diligently preparing for further action against other companies that have ingested our archives and are synthesizing our intellectual property.
Robert Thompson: We hope that litigation will not be necessary, but we intend to defend vigorously our rights and our journalism.
Robert Thompson: This matter is an imperative for our society and for our shareholders. We are also oppuning the blatant biases of ad agencies and ad associations, which we believe are boycotting certain media properties solely on the basis of personal political prejudices.
Robert Thompson: That is detrimental to companies which advertise and obviously enough to the shareholders of those companies which are being denied the opportunity to optimize audience reach. The ad heavens are certainly not in equilibrium.
Robert Thompson: As for the structure of our company, we continue to examine changes to maximise our overall value for shareholders.
Robert Thompson: it is true to say we are in active discussions over the future of Foxtel and we believe all who have studied the worth of our individual assets and our current share price can easily see that that price does not reflect the collective value of our businesses
Robert Thompson: In our view, a clear gap remains, despite the approximately 38% increase in our share price over the past year.
Robert Thompson: The most glaring discrepancy is how the market has assessed the value of REA in our portfolio.
Robert Thompson: By the way, it is really worth highlighting the prescience of Lachlan Murdoch in his early investment of less than US$2 million in cash, which gave us a strategic stake that has become a 61% share in a company worth AU$31 billion based on recent trading.
and has created immense value for all our investors.
Robert Thompson: If you need me to do the math, 61% of 31 billion Australian dollars is approximately 12.5 billion US dollars.
Robert Thompson: Given that our market cap is roughly 17 billion US dollars, that means that Dow Jones, including The Wall Street Journal and the lucrative B2B businesses, plus Harbour Collins, plus Realtor, plus The Times of London and The Sun, plus our UK radio network, plus our Australian papers, plus Foxtel,
Robert Thompson: and a few other companies are apparently perceived to be worth less than five billion dollars which we believe simply defies investing or mathematical logic
Robert Thompson: Now, let's examine each sector's performance and the company's actual value more closely.
Robert Thompson: In digital real estate, we had a particularly strong quarter at REA in Australia, where listings nationally rose 7% in the quarter and have continued to increase at a healthy level through October. We expect that positive momentum will be reflected in second quarter earnings.
Robert Thompson: There was a certain amount of excitement in recent weeks as REA submitted a thoroughly reasonable bid to acquire the UK market leader, Rightmove.
Robert Thompson: But we applaud the REA leadership team's financial rectitude in steadfastly refusing to overpay for the asset.
Robert Thompson: That the Rightmove board did not engage constructively was disappointing but we are absolutely confident in the potential of REA and that potential was obvious in the excellent results the company announced today.
Speaker Change: At News Corp, we have made several important acquisitions in recent years, in book publishing and in particular to expand the professional information business at Dow Jones, but these acquisitions have been knowing investment at rather reasonable prices.
Speaker Change: and the efficacy of that disciplined investment strategy is reflected in our buoyant earnings.
Speaker Change: In the first quarter, digital real estate revenue overall increased by 13%, while profitability rose 15%.
Speaker Change: This double-digit growth was driven by REA reaching all-time record quarterly revenue thanks to strong listing volume and yield and continued growth at REA India.
Speaker Change: We believe REA's potential is far from fully realised as the company's expansion into financial services remains in an early but burgeoning stage and the development of premium products for agents and for families seeking to buy or sell a property continues apace.
Speaker Change: In the US, the property market remains challenged, with punitively high mortgage rates which have had a innocuous impact on sales. But this should be a relatively temporary trend, and we fully expect a rebound as those rates decline.
Speaker Change: Listings have increased year-over-year with a more than 30% increase in active listings in September but we are seeing particularly low sales of existing homes which impacted lead volume.
Speaker Change: As with REA, Realtor.com continues to diversify, including expanded sell side and new construction offerings and a rental partnership with Zillow, and revenues at each of those adjacencies expanded.
Speaker Change: At Dow Jones, which has more than doubled in profitability since re-segmentation four years ago, and which had a strong fiscal 2024, our B2B data and information services businesses continued to prosper.
Speaker Change: For context, our risk and compliance revenues over the last five years from Fiscal 2019 to Fiscal 2024 have more than doubled, representing 18% annual compound growth.
Speaker Change: With global instability and increasing regulatory vigilance, there is no sentient law-abiding company that does not want to minimize risk and maximize compliance.
Speaker Change: At Dow Jones Energy, we are excited by the recent acquisition of A2i.
Speaker Change: a leader in AI-powered technology used to optimize fuel pricing strategies which will complement Opus's pricing solutions.
Speaker Change: On the news side, total Dow Jones digital earnings subscriptions grew 15%, including a 10% increase of the journal. And we expect circulation revenue growth to improve over the course of the year as we cycle through the phases of promotional pricing.
Speaker Change: As for advertising, that market remained volatile and affected overall growth rates, with digital advertising down 5%.
Speaker Change: For clarity, it is worth reiterating that advertising as a share of Total Dow Jones revenue has fallen from approximately 38% in 2014 to 15% in the most recent quarter.
Speaker Change: And, importantly, advertising revenue at the news media segment has fallen from approximately 35% of our total revenue a decade ago to 7% in the most recent quarter, with just over half of that figure being digital, underscoring how much we have evolved.
Speaker Change: At Book Publishing, HarperCollins had another splendid quarter with profitability expanding 25 percent and a margin lift of more than 200 basis points thanks to strong digital and backlist sales including JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy which sold 1.5 million units across all formats during the quarter
Speaker Change: In addition, A Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva, The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey, and The Wicked Collection, which benefited from the movie tie-in, also performed well. Bible sales were again robust during a time of acute political uncertainty and intense global conflict.
Speaker Change: Digital revenue growth at HarperCollins of 15% was driven by the continued success of audiobook sales which climbed 26% and renewed revenue growth in ebooks which increased 7%.
Speaker Change: Looking ahead, we anticipate that momentum will stay strong ahead of the seasonal gifting period.
Speaker Change: We also have the release in Q2 of Cher's new book, as well as The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins and Unleashed by Boris Johnson, the former British Prime Minister, whose puckish perceptions are compulsively compelling.
Speaker Change: As the pithy Boris once observed, the beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest. And often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.
Speaker Change: At subscription video services revenue increased 3% as growth in streaming more than offset declines in linear revenues
Speaker Change: While this quarter was impacted by Hubble costs, as is normal with any product launch, those costs have come down sequentially and we expect them to continue to fall.
Speaker Change: Foxtel's strength is reflected in its successful transition to streaming which now accounts for nearly 70% of paid subscribers while ARPU has continued to rise
Speaker Change: Advertising on our streaming platforms rose over 45% and accounted for over 40% of Foxtel's advertising revenues, with notable strength at Kayo, our sports streaming service.
Speaker Change: Meanwhile, broadcast churn of 11% fell 70 basis points sequentially and broadcast APU rose 4% on prior year to AU$89.
Speaker Change: Sports are the cornerstone of Foxtel's success, with record rugby league and Australian audiences for the just completed season, and a fascinating summer of sports looming. These trends drove strong free cash flow in the quarter and enabled the further repayment of shareholder loans.
Speaker Change: At News Media, profitability increased 14% despite the challenging macro environment. Across our mastheads, we are starting to see the positive impact of our landmark agreement with OpenAI, as well as the impact of our cost discipline.
Speaker Change: In Australia, our digital subscribers rose to 1.13 million and the New York Post Digital Network recorded 103 million monthly unique users in September.
Speaker Change: The retooling of talk TV meant a much lower cost run rate as we focused on video and deployed the acquired skills to enhance the video offerings at The Times and The Sun.
Speaker Change: Our UK results also benefited from cost savings related to our new print joint venture with the Daily Mail Group and a reduction of investment at the Sun US, which was bruised by sudden, capricious algorithm changes.
Speaker Change: That necessary focus on costs is part of our absolute determination to sustain and invest in our journalism.
Speaker Change: Now, we come to another significant moment, a moment that is, for me, personally and professionally, tinged with a certain sadness.
Speaker Change: Susan Panuccio, our esteemed Chief Financial Officer, is stepping down to take a time-out from the hurly-burly of business to devote time to her beautiful family.
Speaker Change: Susan has played an absolutely crucial role in the transformation of News Corp over the past eight years. She is an empathetic, enlightened, energetic leader who has helped me, the board and her colleagues navigate a transition that has fundamentally changed the character of the company.
Speaker Change: We have reported record results during her tenure and that is a testament to the success of her sterling efforts.
Speaker Change: Rupert and Lachlan have made very clear their genuine appreciation for Susan's contribution to the company and her positive influence will definitely resonate for many years to come.
Susan, in her inimitable way, is irreplaceable.
Speaker Change: but we are honored to announce that our new CFO is Lavinia Chandrasekhar, formerly the CFO of Diageo, the global drinks business where she works closely with the great Ivan Menezes.
the late Chief Executive of Diageo.
Speaker Change: Lavinia was previously the CFO for the North America business as well as Global Head of Investor Relations at Diageo. Prior to that she had significant and global financial leadership roles at Mondelez and Procter & Gamble.
Speaker Change: Susan will stay on in her current role through the end of the calendar year and then transition to an advisory role for six months to assist Lavinia in making the transition from bourbon to books and from gin to journalism, though it's fair to say that journalists and gin are well acquainted with each other.
We salute Susan, and we welcome L'Avenue.
Speaker Change: The result of the US elections means that one of our cherished directors, Kelly Ayotte, is leaving our board to become the Governor of New Hampshire.
Speaker Change: Kelly too has played a pivotal role in our successful evolution. Her wise counsel has been priceless for me and her intelligence, her insight and her integrity have been obvious to all who have served with her on the board.
Speaker Change: I know that Rupert and Lachlan are sincerely grateful for her service and New Hampshire's gain is surely our loss.
Speaker Change: And now, for the final time, I give you Susan Panuccio, our brilliant CFO, and my dear friend.
Susan Panuccio: Thank you Robert for those kind words and thank you for a wonderful partnership and your guidance and support over the years which I shall always value. It's been an absolute pleasure to work alongside you.
Susan Panuccio: As Robert said, after nearly eight years in this role and over two decades at News Corp, I am going to take some much desired time off to spend with my family.
Susan Panuccio: It has been a privilege to help Robert lead News Corp's transformation into the global news and information powerhouse it is today, and I truly believe that the company has an incredibly bright future ahead.
Susan Panuccio: I've been so fortunate over the years to have had the support of both Rupert and Lachlan, together with our Board of Directors, and I would like to sincerely thank them all.
Susan Panuccio: Most importantly, I want to thank the talented teams, past and present, across News Corp who I've had the privilege of working with, together with my hugely talented and hard-working finance team, who I will miss most of all.
Susan Panuccio: I'm committed to supporting Lovingear during the transition and will be a willing resource going forward. With that I'll take you through the quarter.
Susan Panuccio: We have now grown profitability year over year for six consecutive quarters by transforming the earnings profile of Dow Jones to focus more on B2B and information services, capitalising on the upswing in Australian listing volumes at REA, while reinvesting and enhancing Realtors product offerings.
Susan Panuccio: revitalizing HarperCollins with strong digital revenue growth and signing a landmark agreement with OpenAI, leveraging the value of our incredible content across the news portfolio.
Susan Panuccio: This has helped to drive record first quarter revenue and profitability together with our firm focus on the execution of our Digital First strategy, supported by focused M&A and organic reinvestments and disciplined cost initiatives, all underpinned by our three core pillars of Dow Jones, digital real estate and book publishing.
Susan Panuccio: First quarter total revenues were almost $2.6 billion, up 3% year-over-year, and total segment EBITDA reached $415 million, up 14% year-over-year. Margins improved by 150 basis points to 16.1%.
Susan Panuccio: These results also include $12 million of deal related costs at REA, which impacted total segment EBITDA growth by approximately 3 percentage points.
Susan Panuccio: First quarter adjusted revenues rose 2% compared to the prior year, while adjusted total segment EBITDA rose 12% versus the prior year.
Susan Panuccio: For the quarter, we reported earnings per share of $0.21 compared to $0.05 in the prior year. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.21 in the quarter compared to $0.16 in the prior year.
Susan Panuccio: Moving on to the results for the individual segments starting with our Jones
Susan Panuccio: The first quarter results were again strong at Dow Jones, with revenues of $552 million, up 3% year over year, and was the largest segment contributor to overall company revenue. Digital revenue accounted for 82% of total Dow Jones segment revenues this quarter, up one percentage point from the last year.
Susan Panuccio: Our B2B products continue to grow strongly, with professional information business revenues rising 8% year over year, despite the impact of the customer dispute at Factiva. Approximately two-thirds of the growth within PIB was driven by volume due to upsells, new customers and products, and retention remains very strong at nearly 90%.
Susan Panuccio: Revenue this quarter included 16% growth at risk and compliance to a record $81 million and 11% growth at Dow Jones Energy to $68 million. Those results were particularly impressive in the context of the prior year revenue comparisons which rose 23% and 20% year-over-year respectively.
Susan Panuccio: At risk and compliance, demand remains strong from new and existing customers with recently launched products including two AI-powered products, Advanced Screening and Monitoring, in partnership with Ripjar, and Integrity Check, developing Rova's sales pipeline. At Dow Jones Energy, revenue in the quarter also continued to benefit from the launch of new products and benchmarks, together with price adjustments.
Speaker Change: As Robert mentioned, Dow Jones Energy acquired A2i Systems, a leader in AI-powered fuel pricing solutions that applies advanced predictive technologies to real-time fuel pricing data and the electric vehicle charging station market.
Speaker Change: Within the Dow Jones consumer business, circulation revenues rose 1% versus the prior year, as growth in digital-only subscriptions was mostly offset by lower print volume.
Speaker Change: Digital only subscriptions improved by 15% year-over-year and by 99,000 sequentially
Speaker Change: Bundling accounted for approximately 31% of the sequential digital-only volume growth in the first quarter. Print volume declined by 16% year-over-year, partially offset by higher pricing.
Speaker Change: Digital circulation accounted for 72% of total consumer circulation revenue for the quarter.
Speaker Change: The conversion to full or step-up pricing from our digital subscriptions added in the past year via introductory promotional offers has so far exceeded our expectations, which will help to drive improvements in year-over-year circulation revenue growth throughout the balance of the year, which we expect will be more weighted to the second half.
Speaker Change: Advertising revenues declined 7% to 85 million dollars, lower than we had hoped with digital down 5% impacted by some softness in the technology and finance categories and lower programmatic sales this quarter.
Speaker Change: Digital represented 67% of advertising revenues, up from 66% last year, while overall advertising revenues accounted for 15% of Dow Jones total revenue.
Speaker Change: Dow Jones segment EBITDA for the quarter grew 6% to $131 million with costs increasing just 2% this quarter and margins increasing to 23.7%
B2B again accounted for the majority of the profitability.
Speaker Change: Moving on to digital real estate, segment revenues were $457 million up 13% versus the prior year and 11% on an adjusted basis.
Speaker Change: Segment EBITDA was $140 million up a robust 15% driven by higher profit contribution from the REA group which notably includes deal related costs for the proposed right move transaction which was subsequently withdrawn. Adjusted segment EBITDA grew 13%.
Speaker Change: REA had an outstanding quarter with revenues rising 22% year-on-year to $318 million, its highest ever quarterly revenues. Growth was again driven by a combination of residential yield increases, continued strong growth in national listings and customer contract upgrades.
Speaker Change: Residential yield growth improved by 15%. New buy listings rose approximately 7% with Sydney up 11% and Melbourne up 9% with both markets achieving a 10-year high in September.
Speaker Change: In addition, REA saw strong revenue growth at REA India and growth at financial services due to higher settlements and submissions.
Speaker Change: Please refer to REA's earnings release and their conference call for more details.
Speaker Change: Realtors' revenues for the quarter of $140 million were down just 1% compared to the prior year, as revenue declines continued to moderate for the fifth consecutive quarter. For the quarter, real estate revenues fell 4%, driven by lower referral and lead generation revenues, reflective of the broader macro trends.
Speaker Change: Lead volume fell 1% while average monthly unique users for the quarter rose 2% to 77 million year-over-year and up 4% sequentially as Realtor.com continues to maintain strong audience share despite much higher competitive marketing spend.
Speaker Change: Quarter Realtor.com's strategy is successfully diversifying revenues to capture more of the total real estate marketplace. To that end, the key adjacencies of seller, new homes and rentals collectively grew revenues this quarter versus the prior year, representing 19% of revenues, and we anticipate continued strong growth going forward this fiscal year.
Speaker Change: Realtor.com remains focused on strengthening its core offerings and to be best positioned for recovery. We released several product enhancements this quarter, including a renovation designer tool powered by AI, dynamic mapping across all platforms, and a visual-based keyword search that was released in beta, allowing consumers to use natural language to search for a home.
Speaker Change: As we expected, the rate of increased reinvestment at realtor.com moderated from the past two quarters with costs up approximately $2 million compared to the prior year.
Speaker Change: At book publishing, momentum from the prior year continued with revenues of $546 million up 4% while segment EBITDA improved by 25% to $81 million.
Speaker Change: Margins expanded by over 200 basis points to 14.8% helped by a strong digital and backlist performance. We continue to benefit from lower returns and operating cost moderation together with strong Bible sales and higher trade sales in the UK.
Speaker Change: HarperCollins posted record digital revenues of $129 million, increasing 15% from the prior year, driven by the addition of Spotify and general audiobook growth across all regions. In total, digital sales represented 25% of consumer revenues compared to 22% in the prior year.
Speaker Change: Audiobooks grew 26% year-over-year, while we also saw healthy growth in ebooks this quarter.
Speaker Change: The backlist contributed 64% of consumer revenues up from 61% last year.
Speaker Change: Turning to the subscription video services segment, revenues for the quarter were $501 million, up 3% compared to the prior year. On an adjusted basis, revenues rose 1% versus the prior year.
Speaker Change: Streaming revenues accounted for 34% of circulation and subscription revenues versus 30% in the prior year, and growth again outpaced declines in broadcast revenues.
Speaker Change: Segment EBITDA in the quarter was $92 million, down just $1 million versus last year, despite the inclusion of $11 million of costs related to Hubble for devices and marketing.
Speaker Change: Excluding the Hubble investment, Foxtel's profitability would have been higher for the quarter. For the quarter, adjusted segment EBITDA fell 3%.
Speaker Change: Revenues for the quarter were $521 million, down 5% versus the prior year, while adjusted revenues fell 7%.
Speaker Change: Segment EBITDA, which only accounted for approximately 4% of total News Corp EBITDA, showed improvement year-over-year driven by cost-saving initiatives.
Speaker Change: Turning now to the outlook, market trends remain mixed geographically, however we hope to see continued improvements across the portfolio throughout the balance of the financial year.
Some of the themes across each of our segments include
Speaker Change: At Dow Jones, the team will remain focused on B2B growth, including upselling and new products across risk and compliance and Dow Jones Energy. We expect to see improved circulation revenue growth through digital subscription step-up pricing, albeit second half-weighted given phasing of renewals, and will continue to monitor those trends closely.
Speaker Change: Expenses are expected to be modestly higher year-over-year due to investment, notably in B2B. However, we will continue to focus on cost efficiencies to drive growth.
Speaker Change: At Digital Real Estate, Australian residential new buy listings for October are up 14% or 7% on a like-for-like basis, excluding additional working days.
Speaker Change: Realtor.com will continue to focus on technology improvements and enhance content and product offerings. We hope to see some revenue improvements given expected interest rate cuts and continued growth from adjacency.
Speaker Change: At Book Publishing, as I mentioned last quarter, we hope to see further profit improvements in 2025, albeit likely at a much more modest rate given more normalised prior year comparison.
Speaker Change: At Subscription Video Services, the strategy remains to scale the streaming products while retaining high-value broadcast customers through improved ARPU and churn measures, and we continue to anticipate the rate of investment at Hubble to be lower during the remainder of fiscal 2025.
Speaker Change: At News Media, despite a challenging advertising marketplace, we expect the segment to benefit from lower talk TV costs, together with savings associated with the new commercial printing joint venture with DMG in the UK, and ongoing operational efficiencies will remain a focus.
Speaker Change: We expect other segment costs to be higher than last year due to ongoing AI-related costs, including legal costs. With that, let me hand it over to the operator for Q&A.
Speaker Change: Thank you. We will now start the Q&A session. Please limit your questions to one per participant. If you've joined via the Zoom application, please use the raise hand functionality to ask a question. If you've joined via the audio line, please press star 9.
Speaker Change: Questions will be answered in the order they are received. We'll now pause for a moment to assemble a queue.
Speaker Change: Okay, our first question comes from Alan Gold with Loop Capital. Please unmute yourself to ask a question.
Alan Gold: Thanks for taking the question. I've got a general question on AI.
Alan Gold: So I see Dow Jones, you have content licensing review in there. Can you give us some sense on how much
Alan Gold: AI revenue came in during the quarter, how it was split between Dow Jones and the news media segment, and what are the possibilities for getting some AI revenue for the Harper Collins Division. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thanks for the question. We can't be more specific than we already have been about the distribution of AI revenues.
Speaker Change: particularly from the OpenAI deal, but you will see it having an impact in the news media section, there's no doubt about that, as in subsequent quarters.
Speaker Change: and it is also a part now of the revenue and profit profile of Dow Jones. But other than that, I'm not at liberty to say anything more given confidentiality requirements.
Speaker Change: I think, Ellen, the only thing I could add to that is, I know we've had some questions in the past about META down in Australia and the impact of that, and I think all we can say is, collectively across all our agreements, that we would expect to see a positive year-on-year movement in relation to revenue.
Thank you, and good luck, Susan.
Thanks, Alan. Luke, we'll take our next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of David Karnofsky with J.P. Morgan. Please unmute yourself to ask your question.
Speaker Change: Hey, thank you for the question. Robert, I think you noted an expectation for Dow Jones consumer circulation.
Speaker Change: growth to improve them here as you cycle past promotional periods. Can you dig in here a little bit, provide any color around that process?
Speaker Change: What gives you confidence you can bring, you know, those promo subs into higher paying tiers? And then as we look out over the medium term, what should we consider, you know, possible in terms of a normalized growth rate for that circulation line? Thank you.
Thank you.
Speaker Change: Now Elmar and the team have been very confident that with the phasing of discounts and subsequent price movements we would see positive movements in digital circulation revenue and that is evidenced now with the 4% increase in digital circulation revenue on the same quarter last year.
Speaker Change: Now obviously it was a little softness in print which affected total circulation revenue but the team confidently expects the positive digital trajectory to continue in this quarter as engagement and retention rates improve.
Speaker Change: And David, we just again without giving specific guidance on this we would expect the the rate of increase in CERC revenue for digital to step up at Dow Jones and be more weighted in the second half of the year as those phase customers step up.
Thank you, Dave. Luke, we'll take our next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of Kane and Hemp with Goldman Sachs. Please unmute and ask your question.
Speaker Change: Good morning guys. And Susan, thanks for all your help over the years and best of luck for the future. Maybe just the books margin this quarter. Can you talk about sort of the sustainability of that? I mean, how much of that 250 basis points?
Speaker Change: expansion is in the title performance in the back or contribution this may be more of the digital contribution sort of underlying efficiencies that are more sustainable
We've already said the reported EBITDA growth was 25%
Speaker Change: Now significantly our digital sales rose 15% with audio surging 26% and
Speaker Change: relative sluggishness. There's no reason to suggest that those trends will suddenly wane.
Thank you, Kane. Luke, we'll take our next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of Ensho Rakovski with Evans and Partners. Please unmute your line to ask a question.
Hi Robert, hi Susan.
Speaker Change: I'm going to try to ask my questions, Susan, all the best for life after news call. So my question's a bit twofold. Firstly, looking at advertising at Dow Jones, it has suffered and it's underperformed some peers. I mean, you obviously acknowledge some of the weakness, and I get that it's a smaller part of the segment, but are there any business-specific...
issues or factors which are causing this.
Speaker Change: and what is your thinking around when we might see a recovery? And just secondly, the Foxtel shareholder loans, I think I can in broad say that there has been a more recent repayment. Are you able to give us an indication of where they sit now post that repayment? And apologies if I missed this. Thank you.
Speaker Change: I think during an election period certain companies are a little bit apprehensive about advertising so we have seen some softness in finance and tech at Dow Jones but overall do bear in mind that news media advertising is itself only 7% of total revenue and more than half of that is
Now Digital Revenue
Speaker Change: When you look at Dow Jones in particular, there was a.
Speaker Change: for in digital revenue, digital advertising revenue. You understand the larger fall in print advertising, but...
Speaker Change: candidly in the current quarter we are expecting an increase in digital advertising revenue at Dow Jones and frankly across our news media properties including the New York Post, UK mastheads and Australia.
Speaker Change: Thanks for your kind words, and just in relation to the Foxtel loan, it is in the filings and the balance now sits at 545 million Australian dollars.
Thanks, Sancho. Luke, we'll take our next question, please.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of Craig Huber with Huber Research. Please unmute to ask your question.
Speaker Change: Hi there. Likewise, Susan, thank you very much for all your help over the years and best of luck to you after News Corp. You've done a great job.
I'm just curious, what's...
Speaker Change: Can you help me just understand, it's been a year here since you announced your company's looking to optimize structures, gone through the board of directors and all that. You made the public announcement and stuff. We're sitting here literally 12 months later and stuff.
Speaker Change: When should investors expect something to materially happen here? It's been a full year. I mean, why the delay?
Speaker Change: because of this Murdoch family issue going through the court system? Is that what's delaying this whole thing? I mean, I just can't believe for the life of me that you guys are making an announcement and then nothing happened for a year unless something came out of left field that you were not expecting. Can you just help us understand what the delay is here, please?
Speaker Change: Craig I think you'd have to admit it's been a rather dynamic quarter with the REA team bidding to acquire RiotMove and as mentioned
Speaker Change: We're in active discussions over Foxtel, and active means active. But there's no doubt that that does not remove the disparity between inherent value of our assets and the values reflected in the share price. I did the math.
Speaker Change: in the earlier statement and only the enumerate would not appreciate that discrepancy but there are quite a few moving parts whether the continuity
Speaker Change: continue to express growth at the Dow Jones Progression of Information and the cyclical slump in the U.S. housing market which obviously affects realtor and the value of our property portfolio, and the Foxtel discussion.
Speaker Change: without being sector specific, we are indeed looking to maximize value. I believe that our cut value at the moment is not fully represented in the share price, even with the 40% increase in that share price over the past year.
Thank you, Craig. Luke, we'll take our next question, please.
Luke: Yes, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please use the raise hand functionality to ask a question. If you've joined via the audio line, please press star 9.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from the line of Lucy Huang with UBS. Please unmute and ask your question.
Speaker Change: Hi Rob and Susan, thanks for taking questions. I've just got one on professional information services, so within Dow Jones. Growth is up 8% in the quarter.
Speaker Change: for this business. I should be thinking about the new rate of growth moving forward because I guess last year this business was growing in the low to mid-teens and do you think some of the new AI and data products that you've released can accelerate growth back into that mid-teens level over the next couple of months?
Lucy
Speaker Change: The impact of the dispute at Factiva, where there was a decline year on year, dragging down the overall revenue increase.
Speaker Change: there. One, we hope the dispute will be resolved. And secondly, the team is working diligently to enhance the user experience at Factiva.
Speaker Change: We have just announced the search deal with Google, which should improve customers' ability to both retrieve and deploy valuable intelligence. And without...
Speaker Change: being specific about margins, overall PIB accounted for 40% of total revenue and well over 50% of Dow Jones profits.
Speaker Change: and Lucy, just to follow up on Robert's comments, the underlying growth rates within risk and compliance and energy are actually very, very healthy, as Robert said. That FATTIVA dispute has impacted the numbers by about 6% this quarter, and so actually if you added that back on, you'd be up at the rate that you were sort of expecting. And as Robert said, we'll see how that dispute plays out, but that certainly had the impact in Q1.
Thank you, Lucy. Luke, we'll take our next question, please.
Speaker Change: At this time, we have no further questions. I'll now hand it over to Michael Florin for closing remarks. Well, thank you, Luke, and thank you all for participating. Look forward to talking to you again soon. Have a wonderful day.