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News Corp (NWS -0.12%) (NWSA -0.04%)
Q3 2019 Earnings Call
May. 9, 2019, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the News Corp Third Quarter Fiscal 2019 Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. Media will be on a listen-only basis.
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mike Florin. Please go ahead, sir.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you very much, Todd. Hello, everyone, and welcome to News Corp's fiscal third quarter 2019 earnings call. We issued our earnings press release about an hour ago, and it's now posted on our website at newscorp.com. On the call today are Robert Thomson, Chief Executive; and Susan Panuccio, Chief Financial Officer. We will open with some prepared remarks, and then we'll be happy to take questions from the investment community.
This call may include certain forward-looking information with respect to News Corp's business and strategy. Actual results could differ materially from what is said. News Corp's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings identify risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ and contain cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information.
Additionally, this call will include certain non-GAAP financial measurements such as total segment EBITDA, adjusted segment EBITDA and adjusted EPS. The definitions and GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations of such measures can be found in our earnings release.
With that, I'll pass it over to Robert Thomson for some opening comments.
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Thanks, Mike. News Corp reaped rewards from our digital strategy this quarter, underscored by a robust rise in digital subscriptions across our media properties, a sharp increase in digital audiobook sales and continued expansion at our digital real estate businesses despite volatile conditions in property markets.
In the third quarter, the Company saw a 17% revenue growth to nearly $2.5 billion, reported net income of $23 million versus a $1.1 billion net loss in the prior year. And there was a 36% increase in total segment EBITDA. These results reflect the consolidation of Foxtel and among other things, another distinguished performance by HarperCollins. For the nine months to the end of March, our revenues were 20% higher, and profitability was 29% higher.
Turning first to the News and Information Services segment, where Dow Jones continues to expand its national and global digital reach. We have recently entered into a partnership with Apple, which is at an early stage. But the initial signs are encouraging, both in terms of reaching new audiences and the strength of engagement with the Wall Street Journal in the new app. The Journal is the most trusted masthead in America and that value can be seen in its results this quarter. We've paid digital-only subscribers if the Journal growing to nearly 1.8 million, reflecting 19% growth. In total 68% of subscribers are now digital-only.
Equally as significant, in the last quarter, about 55% of circulation revenues at Dow Jones were digital, and we believe there is undoubted potential for future growth. In addition to the Journal, other noteworthy Dow Jones properties include Barron's and MarketWatch. At MarketWatch, audience expanded 13% in the first nine months to approximately 30 million average monthly unique users and revenue rose 13%.
Barron's subscribers grew over 20% in the quarter compared to the prior year, approaching 600,000. And its success continued in April, with Barron's breaking its all-time audience record by achieving, for the first time, a combined total audience of 10 million print and digital users. We're also expanding the successful Dow Jones professional information business, where risk and compliance reported 22% growth in revenues. This represents the ninth consecutive quarter of 20% or more year-over-year growth in that business. It is worth noting that at the time of the separation of News Corp in 2013, annual revenues of Risk and Compliance were at $31 million. We expect that number to more than quadruple by the end of fiscal 2019 to around $130 million. We believe that Dow Jones is uniquely able to provide risk and compliance services in an area of significant expected growth. In fact a market research firm recently valued the global risk and compliance market last year at nearly $28 billion and forecast that it would expand to some $65 billion by 2025. Dow Jones robust Live Events business continues to expand across sectors and around the world with the Wall Street Journal CEO Council set to meet in London and Tokyo this month, and the acclaimed Future of Everything Festival launching here in New York City on May 20. At News UK, we also saw continued gains in print circulation market share across all titles and at The Sun, digital traffic improved sequentially with 84 million, global monthly users as of March and digital advertising revenue accelerated.
The Times and The Sunday Times are another quarter of strong digital subscriber growth at 24% to 286,000 and now have in total 527,000 subscribers. In the wake of the recent favorable ruling by the UK government that will allow sharing the resources at The Times and The Sunday Times, we look forward to further efficiencies in their operations, even as their editorial independence remains sacrosanct. At News Corp Australia, digital subscription growth and heightened cost consciousness rounded out another solid quarter, despite a choppy advertising market.
News Australia remains the largest print and digital publisher in Australia with news.com.au still the number one news website, significantly ahead of its rivals with an audience of over 10 million uniques in March. News Corp Australia is looking forward to achieving 500,000 digital subscribers in the coming weeks. In the Subscription Video Services segment Foxtel demonstrated its strength. Demand for the iQ4 set-top box, launched earlier this fiscal year, has exceeded expectation and now serves 43% of our broadcast base. This is important, not only because the customer experience is materially better, but because iQ4 customers have on average a higher build ARPU with lower churn. And while broadcast churn was elevated last quarter at 17.7%, impacted by a recent price rise, we saw notable improvement in March and in April when churn fell to 16%, then 15% respectively.
We are confident that the renewed focus on churn and loyalty should continue that trend. Obviously, we have been investing in streaming, with platform development and marketing costs, as well as leveraging existing sports rights. Our new sports streaming product, Kayo Sports, has already amassed more than 239,000 users since its launch late last year, with more than 209,000 of them paid subscribers as of May 8. This growth reflects the sophistication of the technology and the strength of the exclusive sporting rights we have acquired.
It is clear that the Kayo subscriber base is engaged, consuming an average of over seven hours of content per week. And while it is early days, cannibalization of the core broadcast product appears to be de minimis. Kayo is reaching a new audience and maximizing the value of our existing sports rights. We're excited about the upcoming Cricket World Cup which Kayo has the right to and look forward to maintaining the momentum at Kayo Sports.
We keenly anticipate the integration of Netflix into Foxtel's next-generation set-top box, which will herald the start of Foxtel aggregating other services. Along with a new user interface later this calendar year, this will create a unified content search experience for our customers and strengthen our position in the market, as providers of the broadest range of original and sports programming. Meanwhile, the success of the new season of Game of Thrones is attracting record audiences in Australia and demonstrates the power of our platform. As a result, we have seen the acceleration of Foxtel Now sales since quarter-end, with more than 567,000 subscribers as of May 8, and more than 505,000 of those paying subscribers.
The opening episode of the final season garnered 962,000 broadcast views overnight on Foxtel in Australia, up 17% on the season premier in 2017. That's in addition to the total Premier day audience of 333,000 who streamed it live or on demand across Foxtel Now and Foxtel Go. The investment in streaming is starting to pay off. In the aggregate, with Kayo and Foxtel Now total OTT subscribers at Foxtel increased more than 80% since the beginning of this calendar year to more than 714,000 paying subscribers. Driven by the strong growth of OTT, our closing subscribers as of April 30 totaled approximately 3.1 million, as compared to almost 2.8 million in the prior year.
Turning to Digital Real Estate services, REA Group continue to significantly outperform the competition, despite a soft listing environment and currency headwinds, that is a weak Australian dollar. The housing market was also challenging in the U.S. but at Move, home of realtor.com, real estate revenues, which account for 79% of total Move revenues rose 14%. Overall, Move revenues grew 5% as we have consciously reduced our advertising inventory to improve the user experience, but are able to increase that ratio according to market conditions.
Speaking of those conditions, there are clear signs that the U.S. housing market is strengthening, with lower mortgage rates, strong economic growth and significant increases in personal disposable income. As realtor.com's Chief Economist noted, positive indicators foreshadow a potential strengthening of home sales in the months to come. This has been reinforced by record traffic at realtor.com in April, up 7% from the prior year to over 69 million uniques leading to 209 million visits. Also, the impact of those improving conditions were seen in the most recent new home sales figures.
In March, new home sales rose 4.5% from the prior year to 692,000, the highest level since November 2017. New contracts in March were up 4%. Based on March data from comScore, realtor.com has a greater number of visitor compared to the competition, with more pages viewed and more time spent on the site. So not only does realtor.com have the most complete and up-to-date for sale listings in the industry, it also has the best level of engagement with its audience.
Likewise, we remain confident in the strategic importance of our recent acquisition of Opcity, which leverages applied analytics and machine learning to quickly match consumers with the right real estate professional. The ability to generate high-quality consumer leads for realtors through Opcity provides a new outlet to sustained revenue growth.
This acquisition will involve some investment to increase capacity, but it is an investment in future growth. We recently, expanded Opcity to a number of test markets, offering an exclusive performance based experience to consumers and the industry. We believe that providing higher quality leads to realtors is part of the changing U.S. property market and will result in higher quality returns for realtor.com. There is still much potential for growth in the sector, which is at a relatively early stage of digital development. And we expect the sectoral and cyclical wins to be more favorable over the coming year.
Turning to book publishing. HarperCollins once again delivered an impressive performance this quarter, with standout hits in our Christian division from best-selling author Rachel Hollis, whose previous title, Girl, Wash Your Face has already sold over 3 million units and her latest, Girl, Stop Apologizing shipped another million. Total digital revenues for the quarter grew 5%, which included 32% growth in downloadable audiobooks. Digital in the aggregate represented 21% of consumer revenues this quarter. Meanwhile, the HarperCollins backlist contributed approximately 63% of consumer revenues in the quarter. HarperCollins, has been strengthened its -- has been strengthening its reach into the U.S. book buying Heartland. It is peerless in commissioning new authors, in its savvy editing and in its first class marketing for best in class books.
One recent example of the success of this strategy is the latest book from Joanna Gaines, We Are the Gardeners. And Ben Shapiro's book, The Right Side of History is now a best seller in print and e-book. These successes enhance the bottom line, with a 12.6% segment EBITDA margin in the quarter compared to 10.3% in the prior year. Prospects with News Corp are certainly positive, given the performance thus far in this fiscal year, which is a direct result of the strategic and digital initiatives across our businesses. There is no doubt that the content landscape is changing and that we are seeing more people prepared to pay more for trusted-news and innovative entertainment, delivered efficiently, seamlessly to their mobile phone or home devices.
For more details on this quarter's results, I now turn to Susan Panuccio.
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Robert. Turning to the financials, fiscal 2019 third quarter revenues were nearly $2.5 billion, up 17% versus the prior year and total segment EBITDA was $247 million, up 36% versus the prior year. Results reflect the impact of the consolidation of Foxtel.
On an adjusted basis, which excludes the impact of the Foxtel consolidation, currency fluctuations, and the other items disclosed in our release, revenues rose 2% and EBITDA decreased 4%. For the quarter, earnings per share were $0.02, as compared to a loss of $1.94 in the prior year, which included a non-cash write down related to Foxtel, as well as non-cash impairment charges at News America Marketing and FOX SPORTS Australia. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.04 in the quarter versus $0.06 in the prior year.
Turning now to the individual operating segments. In News and Information Services, revenues for the quarter were over $1.2 billion, down 5% versus the prior year. Currency had a $52 million or 4% negative impact and was responsible for most of the decline. Approximately 31% of the segment's revenues were digital, up from 29% in the prior year. Advertising revenues for the segment accounted for 48% of segment revenues and were down 9% versus the prior year with approximately $23 million or 4% due to negative currency fluctuations.
Circulation and subscription revenues, which accounted for 44% of segment revenues were relatively flat versus the prior year. This despite foreign currency negatively impacting these revenues by $22 million or 4%. Within this segment, revenues at Dow Jones rose 1%, News UK and News America Marketing declined 8%, and News Australia declined 7%.
I will now talk through some segment highlights. At Dow Jones, 73% of revenues are re-occurring and subscription based, relating to either consumer products, primarily for the Wall Street Journal and Barron's or business to business through our Professional Information Business or PIB, which includes Risk and Compliance, Factiva and Dow Jones Newswires. Consumer circulation revenues again grew 7%, benefiting from 19% growth in digital only paid subscribers at the Wall Street Journal to nearly $1.8 million, as well as the benefit of higher subscription pricing ranging from an additional $2 to $6 per month.
Digital paid subscribers accounted for 68% of total subscribers at the Wall Street Journal, up from 62% last year. This quarter we added net 66,000 new subscribers. In addition, subscribers for Barron's, the financial news in the UK, grew 28% from the prior year, resulting in an overall subscriber -- subscriptions for Dow Jones, consumer products reaching almost 3.3 million, achieving record levels. Of that over 2.1 million is digital-only. We also saw stable low single-digit revenue growth at PIB, despite currency headwinds, led by 22% revenue growth from Risk & Compliance, which remains its growth engine, as Robert mentioned, and a core differentiator versus the industry.
Advertising revenues at Dow Jones fell approximately 8% compared to the prior year which was weaker than the prior quarter with the variance versus the second quarter, mostly due to digital advertising, although we expect to show an improvement in the fourth quarter rate. Elsewhere across our News portfolio, at News Australia, advertising declined 9% compared to the prior year, but rose 1% in local currency, due to the acquisition of Medium Rare, an integrated content agency business and digital advertising growth. We saw further weakness in the print advertising market.
In the UK, advertising fell 11% versus the prior year or down 5% in local currency, due mostly to soft print trends at The Sun, which had a challenging prior year comparison, partially offset by a sequential improvement in digital advertising growth at both The Sun and The Times. And as Robert mentioned, modest improvement in print advertising revenues at The Times.
Importantly, we saw accelerating year-over-year digital subscription growth at The Times and The Sunday Times, up 24% year-over-year to 286,000 and at News Australia, up 21% year-over-year to 493,000. That along with cover price increases, allowed both markets to post modest gains in circulation and subscription revenues excluding currency headwinds. Finally, revenues at News America Marketing fell 8%, as growth in U.S. in-store advertising, which is the biggest contributor to NAM revenues, was more than offset by continued weakness in free-standing insert products.
Turning to segment EBITDA, News and Information Services segment EBITDA was $73 million, down approximately 16% due primarily to News America Marketing, mostly a function of the top line weakness. Turning to the Subscription Video Services segment, revenues were $539 million versus $129 million a year ago. Segment EBITDA in the quarter was $98 million versus $16 million in the prior year. These results reflect the consolidation of Foxtel. On a pro forma basis reflecting the Foxtel transaction, segment revenues in the quarter decreased $84 million or 13% compared with the prior year. $53 million of the decline or 9% was due to the negative impact from foreign currency fluctuations.
Broadcast revenue trends were relatively similar to the prior quarter, with the revenue decline driven by a lower broadcast subscriber base and changes to the broadcast subscriber package mix. The revenue decline was partially offset by increased contributions from Foxtel Now and Kayo Sports.
Broadcast ARPU was over AUD79 or down 1% versus the prior year, as the impact of the price increase was more than offset by the impact from the new revenue recognition standards. Compared to the second quarter, Broadcast ARPU rose nearly 2% reflecting a price increase last quarter. We also saw a sequential and year-over-year improvement in Foxtel Now’s ARPU due to a price increase last quarter.
Pro forma segment EBITDA in the quarter decreased $29 million, down 23% compared to the prior year and a moderation from last quarter. The year-over-year decline reflects higher sports programming and production costs, including approximately $25 million of costs related to Cricket Australia, lower revenues and $10 million for marketing related to Kayo Sports. These were partially offset by lower overhead and other corporate expenses as well as lower entertainment programming costs.
On key operating metrics, Foxtel's total closing subscribers were approximately 2.9 million as of March 31, up over 5% against the prior year, driven by higher Kayo Sports and Foxtel Now subscriptions, and the inclusion of commercial subscribers of FOX SPORTS Australia. Compared to the second quarter, we had a modest increase in sequential subscriber growth, as higher Kayo subscriptions more than offset broadcast declines. We are making good progress in our OTT strategy which is helping drive volume growth of Foxtel.
As Robert mentioned, as of May the 8th, we had over 239,000 total Kayo Sports subscribers, of which 209,000 were paying more than double our last update. We also had over 567,000 Foxtel Now subscribers as of May the 8th, of which more than 505,000 are paying, which is an increase of 45% in paying subscribers from quarter end, driven by the demand for Game of Thrones.
In the third quarter, Broadcast churn was 17.7% versus 15.3% in the prior year, higher than we had anticipated, although the majority of churn is coming from lower value, shorter tenured customers, many without contract. Importantly, sports customer churn on broadcast has been relatively stable at only 6%. As we mentioned last quarter, Foxtel has launched proactive churn management initiatives focused on customized solutions for retention of win back and we're seeing real progress in recent weeks. March churn was down to 16.2% and to around 15.1% in April. Moreover, unlocking recent periods, promotions and new broadcast sales are predominantly with 12-month contracts, which should also help the churn reduction moving forward.
Capital expenditures related to the New Foxtel was $223 million in the first nine months. We now expect full year CapEx to be higher than the prior year's level by $25 million or less which is lower than our previous expectations. Stepping back, as we have previously indicated, this year was always going to be a big transition year for the New Foxtel. And segment EBITDA performance has been impacted by reinvestments which have a longer payback period.
On this, there are a few points I'd like to make. We see OTT as a big revenue driver that will have higher contribution margins given we're leveraging mostly fixed cost for previously acquired rights. And we are encouraged by the recent performance of Kayo and Foxtel Now. We believe we can stabilize broadcast churn via proactive churn management and a higher penetration of next generation boxes which materially reduce churn. Approximately 43% of households now have either the iQ3 or iQ4 box up 400 basis points from last quarter. As mentioned, we are seeing good progress on that front.
As we lap the Cricket investment, we would expect programming cost to grow at a much more modest rate after this year and we will continue to thoroughly review our content lineup for additional savings. We see an opportunity to reduce non-programming costs, including the ability to flex the variable components of the cost base like marketing and broader overhead costs.
Finally, on the Foxtel debt structure. We continue to evaluate numerous options to provide Foxtel with more financial flexibility at an optimal capital structure. To that end, we have contributed AUD300 million via shareholder loans, which covered the repayment of April maturities. At Book Publishing, we posted another very solid quarter driven by a strong release slate, which included in Christian publishing, Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis and We Are the Gardeners by Joanna Gaines. UK revenues were also higher, helped by Fing, a new release from David Walliams. Revenues for the quarter increased 6% to $421 million and would have been notably higher excluding negative impacts from revenue recognition and currency.
Segment EBITDA increased 29% to $53 million, despite a much more challenging prior year comparison than the second quarter. At the Digital Real Estate Services segment, revenues were down 3% to $272 million. This growth was more than offset by currency headwinds. Currency had a $16 million negative impact to revenues in the quarter. On an adjusted basis revenues rose 3%. REA Group revenues were down 4%, but up 6% in local currency due to residential debt growth in Australia, driven by increased yield and higher penetration for Premiere All. This growth was partially offset by an overall 9% year-over-year decline in new listing volume during the quarter, which included pronounced declines in both Sydney and Melbourne, down 18% and 12% respectively.
Please refer to REA's earnings release and their conference call, following this call for additional details and comments on their outlook. Move revenues rose 5% to $121 million versus the prior year, with real estate revenues growing 14% resulting from higher yield and growth in buy-side lead volume, albeit at a slower rate due to a more challenging U.S. housing marketplace, as well as the transfer of leads to Opcity. It's worth noting that Opcity is performance-based and as we migrate leads to that model, we monetize differently and this does delay revenue recognition with early data indicating an average delay of four months from its initial lead inquiry.
As Robert alluded to earlier, we have been live testing in a handful of small markets converting to performance only model and last week we expanded to over a dozen markets, big and small, as we test the scalability of the platform. These markets include among others, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland and Nashville. We expect to reallocate resources primarily within realtor.com teams in order to be more streamlined and much better positioned for financial year '20. Revenue this quarter was also negatively impacted by the continued reduction of non-listed advertising inventory, similar to the first half, as part of an initiative to improve the consumer experience and engagement.
Average monthly unique users at realtor.com were approximately 65 million for the quarter, rising 7% versus the prior year. Segment EBITDA, fell 16% to $74 million. The quarter reflected additional cost related to the Opcity acquisition, including deferred compensation. On an adjusted basis, segment EBITDA grew 9%.
I would now like to mention a few themes for the fiscal fourth quarter. At News and Information Services, we expect advertising performance to remain relatively similar to the third quarter rate and we expect to continue to expand our digital subscribers while seeking further cost efficiencies. In subscription video services, overall cost increases should be more modest in the fourth quarter and we expect to see increased contribution from OTT revenues. On a reported basis, we will be lapping the consolidation of Foxtel.
In Book Publishing, we will face particularly tough comps, as in the prior year we recognized $28 million in revenue and $21 million in EBITDA due to the sub-licensing agreement for the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Amazon. At Digital Real Estate Services, listing volumes in Australia remain challenged, impacted by Easter and Anzac Day and in anticipation of the federal election in May. In the U.S., we expect continued reinvestment, as we continue to test and monitor the scalability of OpCity.
With that, let me hand it over to the operator for Q&A.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) We'll take our first question from Alexia Quadrani of JP Morgan.
Alexia Quadrani -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Thank you very much. I was just going to ask you about your opportunity you see with Apple News. You know -- I know the Journal has agreed to have a partnership with them, The Wall Street Journal. I'm curious about how you envision this relationship to go. And do you have maybe any more plans to funnel more subscribers to The Wall Street Journal?
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Well, the first two statistics to bear in mind is that there are 189 million iPhones in use in the U.S. and 1.4 billion iPhones active globally, so that's quite a broad, deep and interesting user base. Look, the Apple deal is important. We are proud to work with companies that value journalism and are popularizing a subscription mechanism. There's just no doubt that we are reaching a far larger audience with Apple readers who may have had preconceptions about the Wall Street Journal and imagined that it was just the world's best business newspaper.
Well, it's much more than that. It is the most trusted masthead in America. Its coverage of politics is by far the best in the business and its lifestyle and sports coverage is peerless. There is no better wittiest sports writer than Jason Gay, and I just hope my compliments don't go to his horseshoed head. We are attracting more younger readers and more women from our internal data, although it’s very early, obviously in the Apple relationship. But what we're not doing is compromising the business subscribers for whom we will provide even more specialist information.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Alexia. Todd, we'll take our next question, please.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from Entcho Raykovski of Credit Suisse.
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Hi, Entcho.
Entcho Raykovski -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Hi, Mike. Hi, Robert. Hi, Susan. One question from me around the rate of digital revenue growth at News and Info Services. It appears to have slowed a little bit over the last couple of quarters. Susan, you mentioned the Dow Jones digital revenues hadn't been that strong for the quarter? Can you explain the dynamics, which are going on there? Is there -- I suspect there is no particular FX impact driving this given it is with the Dow Jones. And I guess what gives you confidence that this will improve into the last quarter and beyond?
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
Hi, Entcho. Thanks for the question. I think, look at – no, you're right. There is no real FX impact coming through in those particular subscribers. I mean, what I would say is that the subscribers quarter-on-quarter do have inflow. We are happy, actually with the growth that we've seen with Wall Street Journal this quarter and we do expect it actually to pickup into the next quarter as well. But in addition to that, we have seen strong growth across our quality masthead around -- within the UK and also within Australia. So I think overall, we are very comfortable with the level of growth that we’ve got and we do expect that to continue.
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
And just to complement Susan's answer, Entcho. The decisive factor from a macro perspective, a strategic perspective, is that more publishers are charging and more readers expect to be charged. That patent has not been long and emerging, but as the sensibility is socialized, we should be able to charge higher prices for our great journalism. And are we at the end of that journey, certainly not. But we have traveled further down the road that many people have imagined possible a couple of years ago.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Entcho. Todd, we will take our next question, please.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Kane Hannan of Goldman Sachs.
Kane Hannan -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Good morning, Robert and Susan. Just on that revenue slowdown at Move. Can you just comment on how much of that, I suppose these relates to the U.S. housing market and sort of macro weakness versus how much is coming from the four month delay in the Opcity?
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Well, the prevailing wins in the property market haven't been particularly auspicious. And I would cite them at this stage as being the most significant influencing factor. And obviously we acquired OpCity with the aim of providing quality leads to realtors, value added leads that genuinely add value for our customers and are valuable for us. And we're in a very early stage of its development and clearly has, there's been some investment to build up that platform and that's clearly has an impact on EBITDA. But I would still remind you that core real estate revenue at realtor rose 14% year-on-year in that sluggish property market and the audience in April did indeed rise to a record 69 million uniques. And that momentum has certainly continued in May according to our internal figures.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Kane. Todd, we'll take our next question, please.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from Alan Gould of Loop Capital.
Alan Gould -- Loop Capital -- Analyst
Thank you. I have got a question for Robert and a question for Susan. Susan, first, the Foxtel debt, so you've financed with some parent company loan. Just wondering why that wasn't just done as rolled over with some more nonrecourse debt from Foxtel? And then Robert, a bigger picture question. I was at the Fox meeting earlier this morning, and they've really simplified that company. I mean, it took years in the making, Chase Carey probably talked about that 5 to 10 years ago. What is the process for News Corp to simplify itself?
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
Alan, I'll go first. I think it's important to note that we actually do have a lot of flexibility internally and externally in relation to that financing. And what we do constantly balance is providing the right flexibility for that business at the appropriate cost. It's also important to note that we've put in as a shareholder loan. So we see that as optionality moving forward in relation to that?
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Yes, look, we are very happy with our asset mix. But it's fair to say that we are constantly reviewing that. And one thing that's not appreciated at times is the complementarity between those assets. For example, between realtor and digital media properties, which have played a crucial role in generating traffic for realtor. And you can see from the two most significant investments we made, Move, or realtor.com, as it's better known and Harlequin, now a crucial part of HarperCollins that they have been transformative for both digital real estate and book publishing, and have made us much more a digital company and much more a global company to the benefit of all investors. But we're constantly reviewing that portfolio to ensure that both in the medium and long-term that investor interest are taken care of.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Alan. Todd, we'll take our next question, please.
Operator
Thank you. The next question comes from Craig Huber of Huber Research Partners.
Craig Huber -- Huber Research Partners -- Analyst
Great. Thank you. Susan, maybe I missed this, but as always, I find it helpful when you can give the breakdown for the circulation revenue growth year-over-year with and without currency in your three main areas. And I also -- I have a follow up question please.
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes, just in relation to circulation, so in local currency, Dow Jones was up 7%. Australia was up 3%. News UK was up 2%. So overall, circulation revenues were up 4% in local currency.
Craig Huber -- Huber Research Partners -- Analyst
And what were those numbers with currency as we have it?
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
In currency, they were in my recorded remarks, which I shall just find. I can – why don’t you ask your second question while the guys get that for me.
Craig Huber -- Huber Research Partners -- Analyst
Yes, Robert, on this Apple News, I'm just curious, you obviously thought long and hard about this before you put your Wall Street journal content on there in terms of cannibalization from your digital product, but what percentage of your articles that you have on your main Wall Street Journal website or your main section of the newspaper, are available on Apple News?
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
What you have is the Wall Street Journal is obviously through a different prism, a different configuration and it's designed for a general reader. And at the same time, we've clearly enhanced the business experience on professional app, so that if you look now for example at the financial sector or the tech sector that are -- a many more articles than there were a month ago. So we're very conscious that it's a different audience, an audience that may not have thought of itself as a Wall Street Journal audience. But we firmly believe that the number of people who will appreciate benefit from and buy the Wall Street Journal will be enhanced by that Apple partnership.
Craig Huber -- Huber Research Partners -- Analyst
Thank you.
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
And Craig, just in relation to the reported numbers, so UK down 4% and Australia down 7%, obviously Dow Jones in line.
Craig Huber -- Huber Research Partners -- Analyst
Thank you.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Craig. Todd, we'll take our next question, please.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from Eric Pan of JP Morgan.
Eric Pan -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Congrats on the strong quarter. Two if I can, as the Game of Thrones comes to end, does it make sense for you to renew a partnership with HBO when it comes due in a couple of years? And with regards to Kayo, it seems that you're adding subs at an annual pace of about 400,000. What percentage of households in Australia do you estimate are willing to pay for sports-only OTT product? Is the ceiling the same as Foxtel or potentially lower?
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Well, look, I wouldn't comment on upcoming contract negotiations, other than just say that Game of Thrones has been a tremendous hit for Foxtel and Foxtel Now in Australia. And again, it would be invidious to give you a hard and fast number. But what is very, very clear is that the growth in Kayo is significant, it's real. And we've made clear that we're in the development phase and there will be investment. But we are already seeing the early results of that investment. Kayo has been in the market for barely six months, and frankly you're not just building a brand but you're changing habits and meeting changing habits. And the key thing is that what is extremely clear from what we've seen in recent months is that Australians are prepared to pay for higher-quality content delivered when they want to watch and it must be what they want to watch. And the great engineering myth was that Australians wouldn't pay. Australians are paying.
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
Eric, just a follow up to that, just in relation to the market size. We obviously are looking at the market, the 70% of subscribers that don't take sports and we know that our penetration has been for the 30% or just below that for quite some time on the core broadcast product. We also know from our research that there are about 6 million to 8 million Australians who are very passionate about sports. 70% of that group do not subscribe to Foxtel and our research also estimates that 4 million of that group are willing to pay for content in some way, shape or form. So that's really the audience that we're aiming at.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you. Thank you very much. Todd, we'll take our next question, please.
Operator
Thank you. Next question comes from Brian Han of Morningstar.
Brian Han -- Morningstar Inc. -- Analyst
Robert you mentioned that you incorporate Netflix into your set-top box at Foxtel. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that and what the commercial arrangement is?
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Well, obviously we can't go into the details of the commercial arrangement. But conceptually, we want Foxtel to be a broad platform to provide the services that Australian consumers want to use and this particular deal is indicative of that strategy.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Brian. I'm sorry.
Brian Han -- Morningstar Inc. -- Analyst
Just to follow on, on that (inaudible).
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) At this time, we have no further questions, I'll turn it back to management for closing remarks.
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Todd. And thank you for all participating and we look forward to speaking with you soon. Have a great day.
Operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.
Duration: 42 minutes
Call participants:
Michael Florin -- Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Robert Thomson -- Chief Executive
Susan Panuccio -- Chief Financial Officer
Alexia Quadrani -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Entcho Raykovski -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Kane Hannan -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Alan Gould -- Loop Capital -- Analyst
Craig Huber -- Huber Research Partners -- Analyst
Eric Pan -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Brian Han -- Morningstar Inc. -- Analyst
