WillItSurvive
Broadcast and traditional media · United States

News Corp.

newscorp.com ↗

Media holding company owning The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, REA Group real estate portals, HarperCollins, and News Corp Australia.

Hard to displace
Assessed 20 July 2026 · Evidence as of 20 July 2026
Strong structural protection; the business model survives ai pressure.
On the recordSince 20 July 2026 · Checkable from discovery ongoing, 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Ruling or settlement in Dow Jones & Company v. Perplexity AI (SDNY 24-cv-07984-KPF)
The call

News Corp keeps growing profit for twelve straight quarters by selling data and listings AI still has to pay for, even as free news traffic keeps thinning out.

News Corp owns three main businesses: a real estate marketplace (REA Group) that dominates Australia, a financial data service (Dow Jones), and a news media division. REA Group and Dow Jones are hard to replace because they have built networks of buyers and sellers (or subscribers) that make them valuable to customers, while Dow Jones owns specialized data that competitors do not have. However, the news division is getting squeezed by AI tools like Perplexity and Google AI Overviews that summarize news for free, reducing traffic and ad revenue. News Corp has started making money by licensing its content to OpenAI and Meta instead of just suing scrapers, which helps, but the outcome of its lawsuit against Perplexity could reshape whether companies must pay for content or can use it for free. A second concern is that Murdoch family control is weakening after a trust change, which could invite investors to push for breaking up the company or reshaping it.

Why
01
AI pressure: Perplexity AI and Google AI Overviews. AI answer engines pull readers away from free news pages, but News Corp now charges OpenAI and Meta for content while suing Perplexity over unlicensed scraping. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.
02
Bigger players: Zillow. Realtor.com holds about 31% of US real estate portal visits, still trailing Zillow, which keeps the larger audience and listing flow. Could a giant copy it? Probably.
03
What protects it. Profit comes from REA Group's Australian listing network and Dow Jones's paid compliance and energy data, both harder to replace than a news article.
What would change this call
Ruling or settlement in Dow Jones & Co. v. Perplexity AI (SDNY 24-cv-07984-KPF). Determines whether AI firms must license content or can scrape freely, resetting News Corp's licensing revenue model.
Realtor.com's Comscore visit share versus Zillow in coming quarters. Tests whether News Corp's real-estate marketplace is gaining or losing ground to Zillow.
Any activist investor or takeover bid targeting News Corp or REA Group after Murdoch stake fell to ~33%. Would show reduced family control is exposing the company to breakup or M&A pressure.
Key numbers
  • FY2025 revenue $8.45B, net income $1.18B (2025-06-30)
  • Q3 FY2026 EBITDA $343M, up 18% YoY (2026-03-31)
  • Realtor.com holds ~31% of portal visits, trailing Zillow (2026-03-31)
Named risks
  • Perplexity lawsuit ruling that scraping for summarization is fair use could collapse licensing-revenue thesis. Severity: high
  • Reduced Murdoch family voting stake (~33%) increases vulnerability to activist pressure or REA Group breakup attempts. Severity: medium
  • Ad-supported News Media segment continues losing traffic to AI answer engines and Google AI Overviews. Severity: medium
  • Dow Jones $1 billion EBITDA target (5-year horizon, set March 2026) could be publicly walked back. Severity: low
  • Realtor.com remains a contested #2 to Zillow in US real estate visit share. Severity: medium
Rivals, as read in July 2026
RivalDirectionEvidence
Zillowlosing toRealtor.com held ~31% portal visit share vs Zillow's lead, per Comscore, Q3 FY2026 (2026-03-31)
Bloomberg/LSEGcontestingDow Jones has not been displaced in decades; targets $1B segment EBITDA within five years (2026-03-16)
Perplexity AIcontestingActive litigation (SDNY 24-cv-07984-KPF) over unlicensed scraping, in discovery as of July 2026
AI answer engines / Google AI Overviewslosing toAd-supported News Media traffic erosion cited as ongoing exposure in 2026 briefings
HarperCollins peers (Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster)contestingBook Publishing revenue grew 8% to $555 million in Q3 FY2026 (2026-03-31) amid peer-equal competition
Questions people ask
Is News Corp profitable in 2026?
Yes. In fiscal Q3 2026 (quarter ended March 31, 2026), News Corp reported revenue of $2.19 billion, up 9% YoY, with net income from continuing operations of $121 million, up 13%, marking its 12th consecutive quarter of YoY profitability growth.
Who owns News Corp and does Rupert Murdoch still control it?
Following a September 8, 2025 trust resolution, Lachlan Murdoch holds sole voting control through trusts running to 2050, while siblings exited as beneficiaries for about $3.3 billion. The Murdoch family's News Corp voting stake fell to about 33%, down from 40.2%.
Could AI replace News Corp's news business?
Ad-supported general news traffic is exposed to AI answer engines like Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, but News Corp has monetized rather than been replaced: it signed an OpenAI licensing deal worth over $250 million over five years (announced May 22, 2024) and is suing Perplexity for unlicensed scraping.
What is News Corp's biggest competitor?
In US real estate, Realtor.com trails Zillow, holding about 31% visit share among portals versus Zillow's lead as of Q3 fiscal 2026. In financial data, Dow Jones competes with Bloomberg and Reuters/LSEG, though it has retained its position for decades.
What happened with News Corp's lawsuit against Perplexity AI?
Dow Jones & Company and NYP Holdings sued Perplexity AI in SDNY (Case No. 24-cv-07984-KPF) over unauthorized scraping and hallucinated misattribution. As of July 2026 the case remains in active discovery with no trial date set.
Did News Corp sell Foxtel?
Yes, News Corp completed the sale of Foxtel Group to DAZN for $2.1 billion on April 2, 2025, retaining about a 6% minority equity stake in DAZN and receiving A$592 million in repaid shareholder loans.
Timeline
  • 2026-06-26Motion to compel non-party Pieter Abbeel filed in N.D. Cal. in Dow Jones v. Perplexity discovery dispute
  • 2026-05-07News Corp reports Q3 FY2026: $2.19B revenue, $121M net income, 12th straight quarter of YoY profit growth
  • 2026-03-16Dow Jones Investor Briefing sets target of $1B annual segment EBITDA within five years
  • 2025-09-08Murdoch Family Trust dispute resolved; Lachlan gains sole voting control, family stake falls to ~33%
  • 2025-08-06Reported full-time headcount of 22,300 for FY2025, down from 23,900 in FY2024
  • 2025-06-30FY2025 closes with $8.45B revenue and $1.18B net income
  • 2025-04-02News Corp completes $2.1B sale of Foxtel Group to DAZN, retains ~6% DAZN stake
  • 2024-05-22News Corp signs multi-year OpenAI content licensing deal reportedly worth over $250M over five years
Revision history
20 July 2026
First assessed. Hard to displace. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
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