News Corp profit collapse; looks to AI
August 11, 2023
News Corporation has recorded a 75 per cent drop in full-year profit. The US-listed media posted $187 million (€170.5m) in net profit for the financial year, down from the previous year’s $760 million record.
The numbers were hit by lower print and digital advertising in Australia and lower print advertising at in UK. For the first time, News Corp generated more than half of its revenue from digital streams and the media company revealed an upbeat assessment of the potential of generative AI, capable of producing text, images, video and other media, to drive profits.
“That momentum is surely gathering pace in the age of generative AI, which we believe presents a remarkable opportunity to create a new stream of revenues, while allowing us to reduce costs across the business,” said News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson. “We are already in active negotiations to establish a value for our unique content sets and (intellectual property) that will play a crucial role in the future of AI.”
The company’s Australian arm recently disclosed it was producing 3,000 articles a week using generative AI. Revenue for the 12 months to June 30th was $9.9 billion, a 5 per cent decrease on the prior year.