News Corp has reported its Q2 2026 financial results and, they make for underwhelming reading for fans of the news. However, chief exec Robert Thomson has come out swinging for the AI platforms, believing that premium publishers will be more important than ever.
In the three months and six months ending 31 December, its News Media division reported US$570 million and US$1.1 billion in revenue, respectively. Those numbers were identical to the same period in 2024.
Meanwhile, News’ Down Jones, Digital Real Estate Services and Book Publishing arms all saw high single-digital revenue growth in the final three months of 2025.
“We are delighted to report excellent second quarter results with both revenue and profitability growth accelerating from the prior quarter, and we see favorable signs for the second half of our fiscal year. Revenues increased 6 percent to $2.4 billion for the quarter and profitability improved by a robust 9 per cent,” said News Corp chief exec Robert Thomson.
“The second quarter results were driven by sustained growth at Dow Jones and Digital Real Estate Services, which both achieved double-digit profit growth and have started the calendar year strongly. Given the current trajectory of our core drivers, we believe prospects for the third quarter are auspicious.”
Despite much reportage to the contrary, Thomson said that being a premium publisher will be more important and lucrative in the world of AI.
“It is clear that expectations of AI’s impact are continuing to evolve and that the more perceptive players have come to realise that provenance is paramount. What is the point of acquiring cutting-edge semiconductors if they are being deployed to repurpose gormless, factless, feckless content sets? We do believe an increasing number of insightful companies understand this content contradiction and will indeed pay a premium for our premium content. This quarter we expanded our partnership with Bloomberg to include AI rights for our unique Dow Jones content and are progressing with other negotiations. We also continued to actively execute on our expanded buyback program, which has been running at over four times the prior rate, reflecting our confidence in News Corp’s strong cash position and belief in the intrinsic value of the Company.”
Circulation and subscription revenues among News Corp’s titles increased $11 million (4 per cent year on year), due to increased cover prices and subscription pricing in the U.K. and Australia.
Digital subscriber growth grew $6 million (2 per cent year on year). Ad revenues decreased $13 million (6 per cent year on year), due to lower print ad revenues.
Digital revenues represented 43 per cent of News Media segment revenues in the quarter, compared to 39 per cent in the prior year, and represented 41% of the combined revenues of the newspaper mastheads.
Closing digital subscribers at News Corp Australia as of December 31, 2025 were 1,168,000 (999,000 for news mastheads), compared to 1,126,000 (979,000 for news mastheads) in the prior year.
The Times and Sunday Times closing digital subscribers, including the Times Literary Supplement, as of December 31, 2025 were 659,000, compared to 616,000 in the prior year
The Sun’s digital offering reached 70 million global monthly unique users in both December 2025 and 2024. The New York Post’s digital network reached 85 million unique users in December 2025, compared to 90 million in the prior year.
