Dow Jones reports 11 percent rise in revenue, decline in earnings

Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, Barron’s and MarketWatch.com, reported an 11 percent increase in revenue for the quarter that ended Dec. 31, but a slight drop in earnings due to higher employee and marketing costs.

Revenues in the quarter increased $55 million, or 11 percent, while EBITDA earnings fell 3 percent to $139 million.

Digital revenues at Dow Jones in the quarter represented 76 percent of total revenues compared to 72 percent in the prior year. Circulation and subscription revenues increased $61 million, or 17 percent.

Circulation revenue grew 3 percent, reflecting the continued growth in digital-only subscriptions, primarily at The Journal.

During the second quarter, total average subscriptions to Dow Jones’ consumer products reached over 4.9 million, a 5 percent increase compared to the prior year. Digital-only subscriptions to Dow Jones’ consumer products grew 10 percent.

Total subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal grew 4 percent compared to the prior year, to nearly 3.8 million average subscriptions in the quarter. Digital-only subscriptions to The Journal grew 9 percent to over 3.1 million average subscriptions in the quarter, and represented 84 percent of total  Journal subscriptions.

Read more here. Dow Jones is owned by News Corp., but its financial results are broken out in its earnings.