nesDow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch.com and Investor’s Business Daily, reported a first-quarter revenue increase of 6 percent and an earnings increase of 10 percent, due to higher circulation and subscription business.
Revenue rose to $586 million from $552 million, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose to $144 million from $131 million.
Dow Jones is owned by News Corp., which splits out its earnings in its quarterly news release.
During the first quarter, total average subscriptions to Dow Jones’ consumer products were nearly 6.4 million, an 8 percent increase compared to the prior year. Digital-only subscriptions to Dow Jones’ consumer products grew 10 percent to almost 5.9 million.
Total subscriptions to The Journal grew 8 percent compared to the prior year, to over 4.6 million average subscriptions in the quarter. Digital-only subscriptions to The Journal grew 11 percent to over 4.2 million average subscriptions in the quarter, which included growth in enterprise and individual consumer subscriptions, and represented 91 percent of total Journal subscriptions.
Total subscriptions to Barron’s Group, which includes MarketWatch.com, rose 2 percent to 1.47 million.
Advertising revenues were flat for the quarter as a 2 percent increase in digital advertising revenues was offset by a 4 percent decrease in print advertising revenues.
The earnings release can be found here.
