Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com, Barron’s Investor’s Business Daily, reported higher fourth-quarter revenue due to better circulation and advertising sales.
Revenue for the fourth quarter, which ended June 20, rose 7 percent to $644 million while earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation rose 20 percent to $181 million.
During the fourth quarter, total average subscriptions to Dow Jones’ news products were over 6.7 million, a 7 percent increase compared to the prior year. Digital-only subscriptions to Dow Jones’ news products grew 9 percent to nearly 6.3 million.
Total subscriptions to The Journal grew 6 percent compared to the prior year, to 4.8 million average subscriptions in the quarter. Digital-only subscriptions to The Journal grew 8 percent to nearly 4.5 million average subscriptions in the quarter, driven by growth in enterprise news subscriptions, and represented 93 percent of total Journal subscriptions.
Subscriptions for the Barron’s Group rose 12 percent to 1.6 million.
Advertising revenues for the quarter increased $5 million, or 5 percent, driven by digital advertising revenues, which grew 10 percent, partially offset by a 6 percent decrease in print advertising revenues.
Digital advertising accounted for 69 percent of total advertising revenues for the quarter, compared to 65 percent in the prior year.
Dow Jones is owned by News Corp., which reported earnings but splits out the Dow Jones results.
The full earnings release can be found here.
