News Corp reported quarterly earnings that beat and revenue that missed analysts’ expectations on Thursday.
Here’s how the company did compared to what Wall Street expected:
- EPS: 11 cents vs. 9 cents, according to Thomson Reuters
- Revenue: $2.08 billion vs. $2.1 billion, according to Thomson Reuters
Revenue fell 7 percent from the same time last year, while earnings increased to 11 cents per share from 10 cents per share.
Advertising revenue for the company’s news and information services declined 12 percent from the year-ago quarter, which the company attributed to a weak print advertising market. Circulation and subscription revenues fell 9 percent.
Digital revenue represented 26 percent of news and information services revenue, up from 23 percent at the same time last year. The Wall Street Journal’s daily digital-only subscribers increased to 1.27 million from 948,000 last year.
Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp owns names like HarperCollins, Dow Jones and the New York Post. An evolving digital media landscape and declines in advertising revenue have weighed on News Corp’s flagship business news outlet, The Wall Street Journal, as it has on numerous others in the industry.
The Journal announced last month it would continue restructuring the company to try and transform it into a digital-first operation. The news outlet’s editor-in-chief, Gerard Baker, told employees in a memo that newsroom’s staff size of about 1,300 jobs would stay “roughly stable.” The Journal started its reorganization last fall.
Despite struggles at the company’s media outlets, shares of News Corp have risen about 20 percent this year.