NWSA Q1 Earnings Surpass Estimates, Revenues Increase Y/Y

News Corporation NWSA reported first-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings of 22 cents per share, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 22.22%. The bottom line increased 10% from the year-ago quarter's reported figure of 20 cents.

Revenues of $2.14 billion increased 2% year over year and exceeded the consensus mark by 1.53%. The year-over-year rise was driven by growth in the Digital Real Estate Services and Dow Jones segments.

NWSA's Quarterly Details

Adjusted revenues (which exclude the impacts of foreign currency, acquisitions and divestitures) increased 2% year over year. Total segment EBITDA increased 5% year over year to $340 million.

News Corporation Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

News Corporation price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | News Corporation Quote

NWSA's Segment Details

Digital Real Estate Services

Revenues in the Digital Real Estate Services segment increased 5% year over year to $479 million, driven by growth at both REA Group and Move, which posted its fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Adjusted revenues and adjusted segment EBITDA increased 7% and 16% year over year, respectively.

Revenues at Move increased 9% year over year to $152 million, marking the highest quarterly growth rate since the second quarter of fiscal 2022. Growth was driven by strong revenue performance in sellers, new homes, and rentals, which collectively comprised 22% of revenues in the quarter, up 3 percentage points from the prior year. Based on Comscore data, Realtor.com had the highest engagement among real estate portals at almost five visits per unique user in September 2025. Average monthly unique users of Realtor.com's web and mobile sites fell 6% year over year to 72 million. Lead volume decreased 1% year over year, showing significant improvement from the prior quarter's 13% decline, as conditions began to improve with falling mortgage rates.

REA Group revenues rose 3% year over year (5% in constant currency) to $327 million, driven by residential yield increases and customer contract upgrades. Residential yield growth improved 13%, driven by strong Premier Plus retention and growth in extension products, including AMAX.

Australian national residential buy listing volumes in the reported quarter were down 8% year over year, with listings in Melbourne and Sydney down 4% and 6%, respectively, while home prices remained strong.

Dow Jones

The Dow Jones segment's revenues increased 6% year over year to $586 million, driven by strong growth in the professional information business and higher digital circulation revenues. Digital revenues in the Dow Jones segment for the fiscal first quarter accounted for 84% of total revenues compared with 82% in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted revenues rose 5% year over year.

Professional information business revenues rose 10% year over year, with Risk & Compliance revenues growing 16% to $94 million, driven by new customers, new products, and improved yield, including continued momentum from risk feeds and API solutions. Dow Jones Energy revenues grew 7% to $73 million, with customer retention remaining very strong at approximately 90%. In September, Dow Jones acquired EcoMovement, a leading global platform for EV charging station data.

Circulation and subscription revenues rose 3% year over year, with digital circulation revenues up 8%. Digital circulation revenues accounted for 75% of circulation revenues for the quarter compared with 72% in the year-ago quarter. The company recently raised the full price rate for the Wall Street Journal digital subscription for new customers and for a portion of tenured customers.

Advertising revenues were $85 million for the quarter, stable versus the prior year, with digital up 2% and print down 4%. Digital advertising contributed 68% of total ad revenues, up 1 percentage point from the prior year and representing a new record.

During the fiscal first quarter, total average subscriptions to Dow Jones' consumer products were 6.4 million, representing an 8% increase compared with the year-ago quarter. Digital-only subscriptions to Dow Jones' consumer products grew 10% year over year.

Total subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal increased 8% year over year in the quarter. Digital-only subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal grew 11% year over year to more than 4.1 million average subscriptions.

Book Publishing

The Book Publishing segment generated revenues of $534 million, down 2% year over year, reflecting softer consumer spending, timing of ordering, and difficult prior-year comparisons that included strong performance from J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy. Segment EBITDA declined 28% to $58 million, which included a $13 million write-off of a customer receivable related to the expected closure of Baker & Taylor, a distributor focused on the library channel. However, October trends showed improvement with stronger front list releases, including works by Arif Kwong, Mitch Albom, Bret Baier, and Ree Drummond, as well as a collection of previously unreleased short stories by Harper Lee.

Digital sales declined 9% year over year, with audiobook sales down 11% due to the title mix. Digital sales represented 23% of Consumer revenues for the quarter compared with 25% for the prior-year period. Backlist sales represented approximately 65% of Consumer revenues in the quarter compared with 64% in the prior-year quarter.

News Media

Revenues in the News Media segment increased 1% year over year to $545 million, driven by higher circulation and subscription pricing in the United Kingdom and Australia, offsetting lower advertising revenues. Adjusted revenues for the segment increased 1% year over year compared with the year-ago quarter.

Circulation and subscription revenues increased, primarily driven by higher cover and subscription prices in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Advertising revenues showed mixed results, with notable strength at the New York Post, where advertising revenues jumped 19% year over year, with nearly 90% of those advertising revenues being digital.

Digital revenues represented 38% of the News Media segment's revenues in the fiscal first quarter.

Segment EBITDA grew 67% year over year to $30 million, driven by continued cost savings initiatives, including benefits from the commercial printing joint venture in the U.K. and continued cost efficiencies in Australia. Overall margin for the news media business increased from 3.3% a year ago to 5.5%.

As of Sept. 30, 2025, The Times and Sunday Times had 640,000 closing digital subscribers, including the Times Literary Supplement, compared with 600,000 in the year-ago quarter.

Closing digital subscribers at News Corp Australia as of Sept. 30, 2025, were 1,162,000 (993,000 for news mastheads), compared with 1,127,000 (979,000 for news mastheads) in the prior year.

The New York Post's digital network reached 94 million unique users in September 2025 compared with 103 million in the prior year.

The Sun's digital offering reached 77 million global monthly unique users in September 2025 compared with 80 million in the prior year.

Other Financial Aspects

News Corp reported net income from continuing operations of $150 million for the first quarter, up from $149 million in the prior year. Free cash flow for the three months ended Sept. 30, 2025, was $4 million compared to $(49) million in the prior year, with the improvement primarily due to higher cash provided by operating activities from continuing operations and improved working capital.

The company has materially accelerated its share buyback program, now repurchasing shares at a rate of approximately $2.5 million per day, more than four times the previous pace, reflecting confidence in the company's growth potential and the belief that the stock is trading at a significant discount to net asset value.

NWSA’s Zacks Rank and Stocks to Consider

Currently, NWSA carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Some other top-ranked stocks that investors can consider in the broader Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector are Amer Sports AS, GDEV Inc. GDEV and PLBY Group PLBY.

Amer Sports currently flaunts a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Amer Sports is set to report third-quarter 2025 results on Nov. 18.

GDEV Inc. currently sports a Zacks Rank #1. GDEV Inc. is expected to report third-quarter 2025 results on Nov. 13.

PLBY Group carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). PLBY Group is set to report its third-quarter 2025 results on Nov. 12.

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