Investor Presentaiton
EBITDA ($mm)
News Media is fundamentally transformed by "digital retrans" and has made the digital transition
After selling non-core assets (News America Marketing + Unruly), News Corp shifted focus towards acquiring digital subscribers and audience, while rightsizing
the News Media businesses to be digital-first, resulting in significant cost reductions. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Co-Chairman Lachlan Murdoch and
CEO Robert Thomson deserve enormous credit for ending 'First Click Free' and pushing for a more appropriate relationship between tech platforms and
content producers. News Media is a significant beneficiary of their efforts, particularly in Australia with the new Australian Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining
Code (passed in 2021). Deals struck with Google, Facebook and other publishers add significant high margin licensing revenue "clearly into the nine figures"
and mean News Media will not only survive but grow in the years ahead.
News Media EBITDA
Times of London Paid Subscribers
News Australia Paid Subscribers
$250
$200
10.0%
800
$217
9.0%
700
8.0%
600
7.0%
$150
6.0%
5.0%
$100
4.0%
EBITDA Margin %
3.0%
Paid Subscribers (000s)
300
ggg
400
500
$53
$52
$50
2.0%
200
1.0%
100
11% CAGR
900
597
800
514
486
700
627
Paid Subscribers (000s)
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
$0
0.0%
FY2020
FY2021
EBITDA
FY2022
% Margin
0
FY2020
FY2021
FY2022
15% CAGR
834
791
Source: Company filings
FY2020
■The Australian
Herald Sun
The Advertiser
FY2021
FY2022
The Daily Telegraph
The Courier Mail
"...[News Media] segment has been going through an intense transformation for the last 10 years...those businesses have made great inroads into the
digital transformation...we converted a lot of the print mastheads, community mastheads into digital mastheads... And we've also been seeing really
strong growth within that business from core subscribers within their main metro mastheads...And they've been doing a huge amount of cost
work...digital advertising overtook print advertising for the first time...that's a real inflection point for that business...the New York Post, which has been
loss making for a long, long time, is now making a profit, and that's largely as a consequence of digital advertising... And then wrapping around all of
that within News Media are obviously these content deals that we've done... Google and Facebook and Apple are working with us...and we're helping
them understand our content in ways that they didn't understand, which is the beauty of those arrangements."
Susan Panuccio, Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telcom Conference (14 March 2022)
IRENIC
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