News Corporation

News Corp reported third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue of approximately $2.2 billion, up 9% year over year. Total segment EBITDA was $343 million, up 18%, and total segment margin expanded to 15.7% from 14.4% a year ago. Earnings from continuing operations were $0.16 per share versus $0.14 last year, and adjusted EPS was $0.21 versus $0.17. By segment, Dow Jones revenue rose 8% to $619 million and EBITDA rose 11% to $147 million; Digital Real Estate Services revenue was $473 million, up 17% reported, with EBITDA up 25% to $155 million; Book Publishing revenue rose 8% to $555 million with EBITDA up 14% to $73 million; News Media revenue rose 5% to $538 million, while EBITDA declined $18 million year over year to $15 million. For the outlook, management expects strong fourth-quarter results, continued strength at Dow Jones, improving revenue at Realtor.com but some housing-market sensitivity, favorable HarperCollins trends, and incremental News Media costs tied to the California Post offset partly by new content licensing revenues.

Robert Thomson framed the quarter as evidence of News Corp’s ongoing transformation, saying it was the 12th straight quarter of profitability growth on a continuing-operations basis. He emphasized that Dow Jones, Digital Real Estate Services, and Book Publishing are the core growth engines and highlighted AI licensing and IP protection as major strategic opportunities, including existing deals with Meta and OpenAI and more negotiations underway. His tone was confident and combative, especially on content scraping and IP rights, while also underscoring the company’s strong cash position and buyback activity.

Lavanya Chandrashekar said the company posted accelerated top- and bottom-line growth, with the three core pillars producing 17% segment EBITDA growth in the quarter. She gave the key figures: revenue of about $2.2 billion, total segment EBITDA of $343 million, margin of 15.7%, continuing-operations EPS of $0.16, and adjusted EPS of $0.21. She also noted $193 million in Q3 share repurchases, bringing year-to-date buybacks to $459 million, and said repurchases are being helped by about $380 million of Foxtel shareholder loan repayment and strong free cash flow. On outlook, she said fourth-quarter free cash flow should be strong for the fiscal year despite somewhat higher capital expenditures, and that Q3 cash flows were affected by working-capital timing.

Analysts focused on Dow Jones Energy investment, Realtor.com’s growth potential if housing improves, AI partnership economics, internal AI cost savings, the “other” segment losses, and News Media’s earnings drag from the California Post. Management said Dow Jones is balancing investment and returns carefully, with energy growth benefiting from U.S. export trends and risk and compliance still a large, growing market. On Realtor.com, they said the business has already outgrown the market, has higher visit share and revenue per home sale than in 2022, and is positioned to benefit when housing recovers; on AI, they said they cannot disclose deal terms but expect meaningful account impact over time and are pursuing both large horizontal AI partners and specialist verticals. They also said AI is already helping with product development, translation, audiobooks, conversational search, and operational efficiency.