News Corp. executive comments about Wall Street Journal

Here is what News Corp. chief executive officer Robert Thomson said Wednesday about The Wall Street Journal on the company’s first-quarter earnings conference call:

At The Wall Street Journal we are now seeing momentum restored. As I mentioned, we’ve launched a new iPad app and added a subscriber membership program through WSJ+, inspired by our success in London with The Times. Our team at the journal under Will Lewis is working hard to grow subscriptions with simplified pricing, new products and enhancements and international expansion. We just launched digitally Barrons Asia and expanded the burgeoning WSJ magazine to Latin America.

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Before I conclude and turn things over to Bedi for more statistical specifics, let me return briefly to the subject of Move. We are even more excited about its potential then when we announced plans to the acquisition in September. It is increasingly clear that the U.S. online real estate market is fragmented and at a rather really stage of its evolution compared to markets elsewhere in the world. Move has the freshest, most accurate listings and a strong relationship with realtors.

These assets will soon be complemented by the powerful media platforms at the heart of News Corp., including The Wall Street Journal and News America Marketing. We will have compelling content and unique brand-building potency and technological savvy. All of which are crucial ingredients in the sprint to success.

Here are comments made by chief financial office Bedi Ajay Singh:

And at The Wall Street Journal, advertising declined high-single digits this quarter, impacted by tougher year-ago comparisons, but we saw an improvement from fourth quarter of fiscal 2014, and gained momentum through the quarter led by our digital offerings. Whilst it is early and booking cycles remained short, The Wall Street Journal has shown strong improvement in October driven by two categories, finance and technology.

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And to that point and it’s worth highlighting that we have recently restructured the subscription pricing for The Wall Street Journal in early October for new customers, which raises the price to the print digital bundle to $32.99, and for digital only to $28.99, representing a $4 per month increase for both offerings.

The entire transcript is available here.