(Reuters) – Media conglomerate News Corp missed estimates for second-quarter revenue on Thursday, as its news and digital real estate businesses took a hit from a slump in ad spending and a weakness in the housing market.
Shares of the company fell 1.4% in extended trading after its first quarterly report since Rupert Murdoch’s decision to withdraw a proposal to reunite the owner of Dow Jones and Fox Corp, which is led by his son Lachlan Murdoch.
Rising inflation and higher interest rates have impacted News Corp’s businesses and dented its advertising sales and digital real estate services.
Tech and media firms from Snap to Paramount Global to Alphabet Inc’s Google have been struggling to cope with a still-weak ad market.
News Corp’s digital real estate services were impacted too as the U.S. existing home sales plunged to a 12-year low in December, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The company last month said it was in talks to sell Move Inc, which operates the Realtor.com website, to CoStar Group.
Advertising revenue fell 10.6% to $464 million during the quarter.
Net income attributable to shareholders fell to $67 million, or 12 cents per share, from $235 million, or 40 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue was $2.52 billion in the second quarter ended Dec. 31. Analysts on average expected a revenue of $2.55 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
