Newspaper woes send Murdoch's News Corp into red

US media group News Corp on Thursday reported a loss in the past quarter, hit by declines in advertising and writedowns at its global newspapers.

The company controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his family reported a loss of US$430 million in the fiscal quarter ending June 30.

Revenues slipped 6.6 per cent from a year ago to US$2.08 billion.

The group, which operates the Wall Street Journal as well as British and Australian newspapers, also took a hit from the strong dollar.

News Corp was required to take a charge of US$464 million to mark down the value of its assets at British newspapers, the company said.

The news and information unit saw a 10 per cent drop in revenue in part “due to weakness in the print advertising market,” the company statement said.

It said digital accounted for 26 per cent of segment revenues in the quarter, helped by gains in online subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal, which now has more than 1.2 million paid subscribers.

The group also operates the HarperCollins publishing house and has digital assets including the realtor.com real estate website.

The company retained most of the print operations of the original News Corp when it was broken up in 2013 into two separate firms as part of a plan to “unlock value” for shareholders.

The breakup led to the creation of a separately traded 21st Century Fox, which includes most of the film and television properties in the Murdoch empire.

Murdoch, 86, began a gradual withdrawal from both companies in 2013, and now shares the title of chairman with his eldest son Lachlan at both firms.

source: AFP