More than 50 percent of WSJ subscribers are now digital

More than 50 percent of The Wall Street Journal’s subscribers are digital for the first time ever, its parent News Corp. disclosed Thursday in its second-quarter earnings.

Of the paper’s 2.1 million subscribers, 1.08 million are digital. That’s up from 828,000 digital subscribers in the second quarter of last year.

In the company’s news and information division, digital now accounts for 27 percent of revenue, up from 22 percent. However, the division saw a 7 percent decrease in revenue to $1.3 billion and a 10 percent decrease in earnings to $142 million.

“We are especially confident in the value of our news brands, given growing consumer demand for accurate and timely journalism,” the company said in the earnings release.

The company reported second quarter total revenues of $2.12 billion, compared to $2.16 billion in the prior year period. News Corp. lost $219 million in the quarter compared to net income of $106 million in the same quarter a year ago. The loss was primarily due to a write-off in the value of its Australian newspapers.

Read the earnings release here.