News Corp’s annual revenue falls as the company looks to digital subscriptions
News Corp reported a 2% income decline in its 2017 fiscal year, with digital real estate services being the main growth driver as revenues declined across the publishing and news arms of the business.
Chief executive Robert Thomson, said the company is exploring new revenue opportunities with online platforms as services look to offer news of “verified veracity” through subscription plans.
In a statement on the ASX, News Corp reported pre tax non cash impairment charges of US$785m (AU$998m), attributing the decline to the write down of its fixed assets, and the lower equity earnings of affiliates, including a $227m write down of the company’s share in Foxtel and revaluations of its Australian and UK mastheads.
Amusing that News wants people to pay for the “veracity” of its reporting. This from the publisher of people such as Graham Richardson (today on the ethics of politicians and his own grubbing) and a choir of acapella apologists for denialism on climate science, religious privacy and often common decency.
If Robert Thomson wants money from readers he’d better start respecting them.
If Robert Thomson thinks News can succeed by having people pay for what we see in his Australian papers then he’s got rocks in his head. Why do I get the feeling that his real game in classic Rupert; get the governments of the world to force Google etc to pay him (when News could, if serioous, simply block the aggregators).