WSJ parent nearly doubles net income in second quarter

News Corp., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, reported second-quarter earnings nearly doubled to $183 million, boosted by a record performance at Dow Jones & Co.

Dow Jones, which operates The Journal, MarketWatch.com, Barron’s and Investor’s Business Daily, reported a 4% increase in revenue to $584 million and EBITDA earnings of $163 million, a 17% increase, for the second quarter, which ended Dec. 31.

Dow Jones achieved its highest quarterly revenues and earnings since it was acquired in 2007.

Revenue growth was driven by increases in circulation and subscription revenues. Digital revenues at Dow Jones in the quarter represented 78% of total revenues compared to 76% in the prior year.

Circulation and subscription revenues increased $24 million, or 6%.

Digital circulation revenues accounted for 70% of circulation revenues for the quarter, compared to 69% in the prior year. During the second quarter, total average subscriptions to Dow Jones’ consumer products were over 5.4 million, a 10% increase compared to the prior year.

Digital-only subscriptions to Dow Jones’ consumer products grew 15% to 4.7 million. Total subscriptions to The Journal grew 7% compared to the prior year, to over 4 million average subscriptions in the quarter.

Digital-only subscriptions to The Journal grew 11% to over 3.5 million average subscriptions in the quarter, and represented 87% of total Journal subscriptions.

Barron’s Group subscriptions grew 17% to 1.2 million. The group includes MarketWatch.com and Barron’s.

The earnings release can be found here.