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Rupert Murdochs News Corp, via Fox de kersverse eigenaar van Eredivisie Live, heeft het afgelopen kwartaal een miljardenverlies geleden.

News Corporation has just reported its quarterly earnings. For Q4 it had revenues of $8.4 billion with earnings per share of $0.32, both down compared to the year before (Q4 2011 the company reported revenues of $9 billion with EPS of $0.35). The earnings per share met analysts expectations, but revenues fell short, with analysts expecting $8.722 billion. Those estimate numbers were down by 11% and 3% respectively on the same quarter a year ago, on the back of pressures in advertising in its publishing sector and a less blockbusters in the entertainment division of the business. The company noted that gains in its cable network business mostly offset declines in all other divisions. Full-year revenue was $33.7 billion, 1% up on the year before.

The company also reported a net loss of $1.6 billion for the quarter, compared to a net income of $683 million in the same quarter a year ago. The company said the figure included a $2.8 billion restructuring charge for its publishing division, which News Corp. is planning to separate from its entertainment division.

And there was other bad news: the company has taken a charge of $224 million for the year on related to “litigation settlement charges,” presumably in connection with the phone-hacking scandal in the UK. The charge for litigation in 2011 was $125 million. The charge for Q4 alone for litigation was $57 million.

In terms of operating segments, all but cable network programming saw declines for the quarter. Here’s how it broke down:

Despite revenues being down on a year ago, News Corp. is also making some significant moves that have pleased the street. In addition to splitting its entertainment and publishing businesses, it has initiated a $10 billion stock buyback plan.

In its last quarter, which ended March 31, 2012, the company had cash reserves of $61 billion and reported annual revenues of $34 billion.

More to come. Refresh for updates.

Digital magazine The Daily has laid off nearly a third of its staff to help the unprofitable publication save costs, parent company News Corp. announced today.

Since the launch of the The Daily in February 2011, people have wondered if an iPad-only publication could make enough money to be sustainable. It currently loses $30 million a year, and executives projected that it would take five years to break even. With News Corp. planning to split its publishing and entertainment businesses, that timeline doesn’t look so viable anymore.

In a press release, The Daily said it would cut 50 full-time employees, or 29 percent of its full-time staff. The sports section will be gutted and replaced with content from “partners” like Fox Sports. The opinion section will be cut entirely.

The publication also said it would move to a “portrait-only orientation,” which could help it save money on development. Videos will still be viewable in landscape mode.

Photo: The Daily

Filed under: media

It was announced on Tuesday that “The Daily,” media giant News Corp.’s foray into digital newspapers, will lay off 50 of its 170 employees as the embattled subscription-based publication fights to stay alive.

News Corporation’s tablet and smartphone-only publication The Daily, which first debuted on Apple’s iPad, has reportedly been put “on watch” as its parent company restructures and looks to cut costs.

The Netflix model of unlimited content works well for movies and television shows, but can it work for magazines?

That’s the question being answered by Next Issue, a subscription-based all-you-can-read tablet app that’s hitting the iPad today after an extended period flying solo on Android.

Via the app, users have access to 39 titles from all the big publishers – Conde Nast, Hearst, News Corp, Meredith, and Time — so there’s no shortage of options. Surprisingly, Next Issue hopes to double its selection by the end of the year.

Next Issue offers two types of subscriptions, which run for $10 and $15. The more expensive Premium subscription offers the service’s entire catalog (including its weekly selections), while the Basic plan only offers the top magazines.

Either way, it’s a pretty good deal, considering the average magazine subscription runs for a yearly $20. Half that price for 40 titles? That’s pretty hard to pass up.

But what’s most surprising is just how long its taken the app to reach iPad owners. As the success of Apple’s Newsstand app has shown, iOS is a major moneymaker for magazine publishers. It will be interesting to see where the service goes from here. There may be some hope for magazines just yet.

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Filed under: media

“TV news is ultimately much more an arm of the entertainment industry than it is of the news industry. Its star anchors get paid millions of dollars because they’re popular on TV, not because of their reporting skills; and while the occasional news magazine program will sometimes break news, newspapers and websites have always been the undisputed leaders on that front.”

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- Felix Salmon: “News Corp’s digital divergence” (via reuters)

Old media, some think, is headed for the graveyard, and they’ll be damned if it takes young and cool new media with it. But it ain’t dead yet, and some growling comments made today by Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and chairman of News Corp., underscored how it will continue to keep on ticking for some time still.

In a conference call today to discuss the confirmation that News Corp. will, in fact, split its empire into two businesses — entertainment/media and print/publishing — Murdoch sounded out to quiet the “naysayers” that think the board is concerned about the long-term fortunes of publishing, and therefore is cutting the business off. “This could not be further from the truth,” he said. “People will pay for news. It is the most valuable commodity in the world.” He pointed out that the charging models for newspapers and apps are working, “And we are going to push them even harder.”

There was a sign earlier this week of what he means by that. The Wall Street Journal, part of News Corp., announced a deal with in reading app Pulse in which Pulse will sell in-app subscriptions for selected channels of Wall Street Journal content. These will be priced as less expensive than the WSJ’s $4.99/ month cost for access to the whole site, and are therefore aimed at targeting new readers for the newspaper. It’s in contrast to Flipboard’s deal with the New York Times, which is using its Flipboard relationship to sweeten the deal for its basic subscribers, by giving them another place to consume the content for which they pay already.

Over in the UK, however, there are signs that the company is also looking at ways of being a bit more flexible about its paywall stance, rather than becoming even more hardline about it. Earlier this month, The Times dropped its online paywall for the Queen’s Jubilee anniversary, the first time it’s done this since charges came into effect in 2010.

Those charges initially caused a 90 percent decline, a drop of 4 million users, but numbers have been steadily increasing since March 2011 and are now at 265,740 subscribers. “We’re really pleased with the results so far,” Nick Bell, director of digital products for News Corp division News International, told me today, but wouldn’t say whether those subs revenues had reached parity with what it used to make from online ads.

Murdoch didn’t get into too many details about how the split would work — for example no news on whether this will mean a renewed focus to get full control of BSkyB in the UK — but he did note that he will be chairman of both companies, but CEO only of the media and entertainment entity. It will take 12 months to untangle the companies, he said, and the publishing company will also contain a new digital education group to bolster its business — and probably to better compete against Pearson. Digital will go in both parts — for example the media division will contain its stake in Hulu.

He said that the move to separate the companies was three years in the planning and flatly denied that it was made in response to the huge phone hacking scandal that hit the company last year and is still being played out in a parliamentary investigation in the UK. “Right now is the time to proceed with this,” he said, to help achieve “fair value” for News Corp’s assets.

Rupert Murdoch ontkent dat mediaconcern News Corp van plan is om de Britse kranten te verkopen om het overige deel van zijn bedrijf te beschermen.

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Many magazine publishers see the iPad as their salvation. Five of the big ones (Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp., and Time Inc.) banded together to create a joint venture called Next Issue Media, and today the company is launching its Android app.

CEO Morgan Guenther (formerly president of Tivo) says that despite all the excitement about bringing magazines to tablets, the current system is lacking — specifically, the need to download a new app for every magazine. Gone is the “newsstand” feeling of walking into a store and browsing a rack of titles. Instead, it’s like you’re ushered into a windowless room where you can read a copy of Wired. Want to read The New Yorker? You’ll have to leave for another room.

“And when I walk in, there’s a big sign on the front door saying, ‘Here are your instructions for reading the magazine,’” Guenther says.

So Next Issue offers a single newsstand app where, eventually, you may be able to subscribe and read all your favorite magazines. Right now, it has 32 titles. Even though it’s a relatively short list, it’s an impressive one, including Better Homes & Gardens, ELLE, Esquire, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, TIME, and Vanity Fair. You can purchase individual issues or subscriptions, there’s also a free 30-day trial for each subscribers. The catalog starts in January of this year.

Guenther demonstrated the app for me earlier this week. There’s a nice 3D carousel for quickly flipping the pages, and publishers can add extra content like bonus photos, videos, and interactive features. And the interface is consistent between each magazine, so you don’t have to learn how to read different magazines.

Even more than the interface, I was excited about the price. Individual subscriptions range from $1.99 to $9.99 per month, but there are also two unlimited options — $9.99 for every monthly and biweekly title, or $14.99 for everything, including the weeklies like TIME and The New Yorker. You probably won’t read every issue of every title, but you can follow your favorites, and dip in and out of others as specific stories and issues interest you. It’s almost like a Netflix plans for magazines.

Oh, and if you don’t own an Android tablet (who does?), Guenther says Next Issue will be submitting its iPad app to Apple soon.