News Corp is a multinational American mass media company, based in New York City. The business dates back to News Limited in 1923 in Adelaide in Australia. News Corp was created in 1979 as a holding company for News Limited. It moved to the United States in 2004.
The company operates a wide network of companies in the media, news, education, and information services industries.
The activities of News Corp are primarily carried out in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
Its distribution platforms consist of traditional print, television, websites, electronic readers and applications for tablets and mobile devices.
News Corp was created in June 2013 following a spin-off of the former News Corporation (founded by Rupert Murdoch), the new publicly traded company was formed to focus on publishing and newspapers.
News Corporation split its media and entertainment business into 21st Century Fox.
The decision to divide News Corporation into two separate companies (21st Century Fox and News Corp) occurred after a number of scandals that were bad for the reputation of the multiple properties that News Corporation owned.
Rupert Murdoch stated that the split would “unlock even greater long-term shareholder value”.
News Corp formally began trading on July 1, 2013 on the NASDAQ Stock Market under the ticker symbol “NWS”.
On May 2, 2014, News Corp acquired Harlequin Enterprises, the romance novel publisher from Torstar for $415 million. The transaction was completed in August 2014. Later that year the company announced that it would also be acquiring Move Inc – a real estate listing site.
News Corp currently owns and operates the following newspaper and book publishing companies:
- Dow Jones & Company – a financial publisher and owner of the Wall Street Journal. Other publications of Dow Jones include Barron’s Magazine, and MarketWatch.
- News Corp Australia – one of Australia’s largest media companies. It is active in newspaper and magazine publishing, Internet, pay TV, market research, DVD and film distribution, and film and television production trading assets.
- News UK – a British newspaper publisher. It is the current publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun.
- New York Post – a daily newspaper in New York City. It is the 13th-oldest and seventh-most-widely circulated newspaper in the United States, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton.
- HarperCollins – a leading book publisher. It is part of the “Big Six” English-language publishing companies.
- News America Marketing – focuses on advertising and coupon promotions. It publishes SmartSource Magazine, a consumer-branded newspaper insert that offers advertising and coupon promotions
Key facts about News Corp
- CEO: Robert Thomson
- CTO: Paul Cheesbrough
- Executive Chairman: Rupert Murdoch
- Co-Chairman: Lachlan Murdoch
- Type: Public
- Industry: Publishing
- Publicly listed on NASDAQ
- NASDAQ stock ticker symbol: NWS
- S&P 500 Component
- Formed: July 1, 2013
- Founder(s): Rupert Murdoch
- Employees: 24,000 (2013) of whom approximately 9,000 are in the U.S., 4,000 are in the U.K. and 9,000 are in Australia.
- Corporate headquarters: 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, United States
- Corporate contact number: (212) 416-3400
- Website: http://newscorp.com/
News Corp reports its business in the following six segments:
News and Information Services – includes the print and digital product offerings of The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s publications, Marketwatch.com, and its range of professional information products, such as Factiva, Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Private Markets and DJX.
Other major publications in its News and Information Services segment include The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and The Courier Mail in Australia, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sun on Sunday in the U.K. and the New York Post in the U.S.
Book Publishing – consists of HarperCollins, the leading English-language publisher in the world. HarperCollins includes over 60 branded publishing imprints, including Avon, Harper, HarperCollins Children’s Publishers, William Morrow, Harlequin and Christian publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson.
Cable Network Programming – includes FOX SPORTS Australia, the number one sports programming provider in Australia.
Digital Real Estate Services – News Corp owns 61.6% of REA Group Limited, a leading digital advertising business specializing in real estate services that is publicly traded.
Digital Education – Its Digital Education segment consists of Amplify, which is News Corp’s digital education business.
Other – This segment mainly includes general corporate overhead expenses, the corporate Strategy and Creative Group, and costs related to the U.K. Newspaper Matters.
Some of the major properties that News Corp owns:
