The news: News Corp. reported a 3% rise in first-quarter revenue, driven by expansion in book publishing, real estate services and Dow Jones segments.
The company also announced that its Chief Financial Officer Suzanne Panuccio will step down from her position in January 2025 and will be replaced by Lavanya Chandrasekar.
The figures: News Corp. posted first-quarter revenue of $2.58 billion, increase 3% from a year earlier.
Net income during the quarter was $144 million, up $58 million from the year-ago period. Total segment EBITDA inflation 14% to $415 million from $364 million.
Context: News Corp said revenue growth was driven by higher Australian residential revenue at its real estate platform REA Group, higher digital book sales and increase returns in the book publishing segment, and continued inflation in the professional information business at its Dow Jones segment.
The company said that its growth was partially offset by a 5% decline in revenue at its news media segment.
News Corp also noted that Dow Jones and the New York Post have initiated proceedings against “Perplexity”, an American artificial intelligence startup backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and chip maker Nvidia.
News Corp CEO Robert Thomson said that Perplexity Media was selling products based on the group’s journalism, and that News Corp was “actively preparing for further action against other companies that have acquired our archives and are synthesizing our intellectual property.”
What they said: “We have achieved these record first quarter results in a broad range of conditions that were not auspicious. This is powerful evidence of News Corp’s successful transformation over the last decade,” Thomson said.
“Meanwhile, the recently concluded election has highlighted the importance of credible journalism in a media storm in which some journalists are mistaking virtue for slander.
“Artificial intelligence regurgitates informational inaccuracies and it’s vital that journalistic input has integrity, which is why our partnership with Open AI is so important and why we intend to prosecute AI companies that abuse our trusted journalism.”