News Corp. Q2 Profit Beat Wall Street Estimates

(RTTNews) - News Corp. (NWS, NWSA), Thursday reported a profit for the second quarter that trumped Wall Street estimates, as revenues jumped 21 percent.

The New York-based media company reported a second-quarter profit available to News Corp. shareholders of $95 million or $0.16 per share, compared to last year's loss of $84 million or $0.14 per share.

Adjusted earnings were $103 million or $0.18 per share, down from $137 million or $0.24 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.15 per share.

Revenues for the quarter jumped 21 percent to $2.63 billion from $2.18 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $2.63 billion.

Growth in profit and revenues reflect the consolidation of Foxtel and a healthy expansion of revenues in the Book Publishing and Digital Real Estate Services segments, CEO Robert Thomson said.

"News Corp has reported increased profitability and revenue growth during the first half of Fiscal 2019, highlighting the power of premium content and authenticated audiences in a fact-challenged world that craves credibility," Thomson said.

Revenue at key news and information services segment, which includes Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, dropped 3 percent from a year ago to $1.26 billion. Among smaller segments, book publishing rose 6 percent; digital real estate gained 7 percent and subscription video services increased to $562 million from $120 million.

Digital revenues represented 32 percent of News and Information Services segment revenues in the quarter, compared to 29 percent a year ago. The Wall Street Journal average daily digital subscribers in the three months ended December 31, 2018 were 1,709,000, up from 1,389,000 a year ago.

NWS closed Thursday's trading at $12.82, down $0.25 or 1.91% on the Nasdaq.