Dow Jones Annual Earnings Reveal Record Digital Ad Gains, Climbing Subscriber Growth

Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and MarketWatch, reported record gains in its fourth quarter and full-year earnings revenue call on Thursday. Overall, the trio of publishers saw quarterly revenue increase $68 million, or 18%, compared to the year prior. The full-year revenues for the fiscal year increased $112 million, or 7%, primarily due to growth in circulation, subscription revenue, advertising revenue and the acquisition of Investor’s Business Daily, the company stated in its earnings report. In a call with investors, Robert Thomson, the CEO of News Corp, the parent company of Dow Jones, expressed enthusiasm for the future of its publisher portfolio. "Dow Jones had its most profitable year since it was acquired in 2007," Thomson said. "We are confident that Almar Latour, and the team at Dow Jones, are poised to deliver ongoing excellent results." The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s Group Emphasize First-Party Data to Advertisers The positive numbers come at a critical time for Dow Jones, as the media industry writ large struggles to retain the subscribers it generated in 2020, a boom year driven by historic news cycles and quarantine isolation. The Wall Street Journal, in particular, has fallen under scrutiny in recent months, as internal schisms about its business strategy have led to key departures. Its principal competitor, The New York Times, reported appreciable quarterly gains on Tuesday despite industry-wide headwinds, which put pressure on The Journal to match. Digital advertising revenue increases continue Dow Jones reported record advertising increases by quarter, climbing 45% year-over-year to $32 million. Comparing fiscal years, total advertising revenue increased $14 million, or 4%, the first year-over-year growth in a decade. Of course, advertising revenues plummeted last year due to the pandemic, thereby inflating year-over-year comparisons. Even print advertising revenues, which have been declining throughout the industry for years, saw a 36% increase. The historic increases stem from a digital advertising market that has ballooned, rather than simply rebounded, since its pandemic-induced depression. Media companies’ net advertising revenue is predicted to reach an all-time high of $259 billion in 2021, according to a June report from media intelligence agency Magna, an increase of $34 billion compared to 2020. Thomson also mentioned the three-year content licensing deal News Corp struck with Google in February, whose financial terms were kept confidential. On the call, the CEO said that the arrangement could yield significant annual revenue, "clearly into nine figures." Subscription numbers continue to climb Across its portfolio, the total number of subscribers to Dow Jones products reached 4.5 million, a 19% increase compared to the prior year. This figure includes roughly 100,000 subscribers to Investor's Business Daily, which News Corp acquired in March for $275 million. Total subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal grew 15% compared to the prior year, to nearly 3.5 million. Digital-only subscriptions to The Journal grew by almost 100,000, or 21%, to more than 2.7 million subscriptions in the quarter, and they now represent 79% of its total subscriptions. The Journal has seen slow but steady growth to its digital subscriptions, rising from 2.46 million to 2.63 million to 2.7 million over the last three quarters, numbers that obscure rates of subscriber churn. Louise Story, the editor charged with overseeing digital strategy and technology at The Journal who left the paper in July, wrote in a pivotal report called The Content Review that "in the past five years, [The Journal has] had six quarters where we lost more subscribers than we gained." Declining subscriber growth has similarly plagued publishers like The Atlantic, who benefitted from the need for political coverage in a tumultuous election year. Dow Jones and The Journal have avoided dramatic downturns thanks to their focus on finance rather than politics.