Comments about Wall Street Journal from News Corp. call

Here are comments related to The Wall Street Journal from the News Corp. second-quarter earnings conference call.

Chief executive officer Robert Thomson:

In the U.S. as you are no doubt aware, we recently announced a change in leadership at Dow Jones and appointed Will Lewis as the Interim CEO. We are also undertaking a fundamental review about institutional sales strategy. We have been listening to our customers and intend to make DJX more flexible and thus more compelling to clients from a wider range of business sectors. We will be refining our product, our pitch and our prices. These decisive actions were taken following an intensive assessment of the state of the business which made quite clear to us the need for prompt action. I will work closely with Will to revitalize the Dow Jones institutional business and to reinvigorate The Wall Street Journal, whose continued cross platform growth and development is also a priority.

Chief financial officer Bedi Singh:

News UK advertising declined low single-digits versus the prior year and Wall Street Journal both domestically and globally declined low to mid single-digits in the quarter.

Thomson:

The Dow Jones institutional business is very much core and there is no doubt that the original concept, the DJX had much merit to it. But to be quite frank, the execution was not quite right and the trajectory was not quite right. And so the right thing to do was to make a change promptly and decisively. And what we have already seen is that Will Lewis has been an efficacious presence. He is certainly making a positive difference in terms of both mood and momentum and he is looking very closely at the great assets. But our part of the institutional business and Factiva, the newswires and by the Journal content as well, which is part of the field that makes us the preeminent provider of our business news globally. But what you will see John in coming weeks and months is a much more flexible approach to our customers, not a plethora of prices, but a pricing schedule that makes sense to institutional customers according to the hierarchy of usage. It will be based on utility. And I am sure many of the people on this call uses Dow Jones institutional news and analysis and will be in touch with you.

Read the full transcript here.