Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com and Barron’s reported an 18 percent increase in revenue and 15 percent increase in earnings in the fourth quarter, according to a News Corp. earnings release.
Revenue totaled $449 million, up from $381 million, while the profit totaled $69 million, up from $60 million in the fourth quarter of last year.
Revenues increased primarily due to growth in circulation and subscription revenues and advertising revenues, as well as the acquisition of Investor’s Business Daily.
Circulation and subscription revenues increased $34 million, or 11 percent. The growth was primarily driven by a 12 percent increase in circulation revenues.
Digital circulation revenues accounted for 65 percent of circulation revenues for the quarter, compared to 61 percent in the prior year period. During the quarter, total average subscriptions to Dow Jones’ consumer products reached approximately 4.5 million, a 19 percent increase compared to the prior year, and includes over 100,000 IBD subscriptions, the majority being digital-only.
Subscriptions to The Journal grew 15 percent compared to the prior year, to nearly 3.5 million average subscriptions in the quarter. Digital-only subscriptions to The Journal grew 21 percent to more than 2.7 million average subscriptions in the quarter, and represented 79 percent of its total subscriptions.
Advertising revenue increased $32 million, or 45 percent, primarily due to a 53 percent increase in digital advertising revenues, the highest year-over-year growth rate on record, as well as a 36 percent increase in print advertising revenues, driven by the recovery from COVID-19-related market weakness in the prior year.
Digital advertising accounted for 56 percent of total advertising revenues in the quarter, compared to 54 percent in the prior year period.
The earnings release can be found here.
