The following conversation occurred during News Corp.’s fourth quarter earnings conference call:
David Joyce, analyst, Seaport Research: Thank you. You had really strong growth in the Wall Street Journal subscriptions, both digital and total. What would you attribute that, and what do you think you can do to to keep that growth continuing?
Robert Thompson, chief executive, News Corp: We would attribute that to the unique excellence of The Wall Street Journal and its functionality as the imperative of readers, both professional and nonprofessional, to be well informed by a trusted news source. Absolutely, The Wall Street Journal is that source. And we saw, as mentioned, an overall 9% increase in digital subs, a 10% increase in digital revenues, and there is no reason why that shouldn’t continue, given the uniqueness of the content set.
Lavanya Chandrasekar, chief financial officer, News Corp: I’d add to that, Robert. We did also benefit from a a new partnership that we have entered into with LSAG. The partnership is much broader than just circulation revenue and provides a custom and streamlined dashboard with our, content from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and IBD to be available to, the subscribers. This is, this is just kicking off right now. It’s still very early days, But, the business does come with a with a higher margin, driven by lower acquisition costs, lower churn, and lower retention costs.
The full transcript can be found here.
