WSJ sees growth in circulation revenue

News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson spoke on Thursday’s first-quarter earnings conference call about The Wall Street Journal.

Here are excerpts:

At Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal is the premier player in financial news. Today, we have over 700,000 digital only subscribers and we obviously expect that number to rise. Digital is one-third of our paid subscriber base, at present. We acknowledge that the Journal is underpriced, and we’ve taken steps to address that through a combination of new rates and flexible packaging. This quarter, circulation revenues at the Journal grew 7%, an impressive rate of growth in this marketplace.

Our ad revenues at the Journal showed strong sequential improvement in the fourth quarter, and early signs for the first quarter of the current year are particularly promising. This trend highlights the increasing importance of our marquee brand and a desirable demographic in a cluttered, confusing, and sometimes confounding advertising market. We launched WSJ+ this year, The Wall Street Journal’s customer loyalty program and it’s showing traction with nearly 200,000 active members, thus increasing engagement and lowering churn. We have incorporated similar programs across our markets in Australia and the UK. We announced new global print editions, a Journal to grow our audience and advertising revenues internationally, as we focus on key financial hubs and using digital to extend our reach more efficiently in smaller markets. Our team at Dow Jones is continuing to innovate. Having just launched Mansion Global, a new website, which leverages our unique customer base to create a premier international and digital luxury real estate platform in English, Chinese, and Spanish.

Read the entire conference call transcript here.