Meanwhile, in case Rupert Murdoch is celebrating too hard, it’s mandatory to jog back to News Corp’s third-quarter results, as released in the shadow of the ballot box. Profits for the entire company of printed word operations plus a dollop of Aussie TV: down 52%, to $23m. News division ad revenue – for the Times, Sun, Wall Street Journal, New York Post et al – down 12% for ads and 6% on subscriptions (behind mandatory paywalls where applicable). You see no digital ad rises to compensate for sliding print ad rates or volume. You, more worryingly, discover no subscription bounce. The overall slump is 9%.
There’s profit in there somewhere, to be sure, and still time to alight on a magic button. But the accustomed US staging post of digital ad rises and cover-price increases compensating for print advertising and sales slumps doesn’t seem to be working here. It’s rather a grey old world behind Rupert’s grey old wall.
