News Corp (NWS) 2017 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the News Corp Third Quarter Fiscal 2017 Earnings Call.

Today's call is being recorded.

(Operator Instructions)

At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mike Florin, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, Matt.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to News Corp's Fiscal Third Quarter 2017 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 over it to Robert Thomson for some opening comments.

Thank you, Mike.

In the third quarter, we saw positive results in our ongoing mission to become increasingly global, digital and diversified, to be resolutely cost-conscious and to deliver enhanced results for our shareholders.

There was robust growth in revenues and EBITDA, specifically a 5% rise in revenues to approximately $2 billion and total segment EBITDA of $215 million compared to a loss of $122 million in the prior year, which included the News America Marketing settlement charge.

Excluding that charge, total segment EBITDA in the quarter would have increased 36% compared to the prior year.

We are pleased with the performance of many of our businesses, including our Digital Real Estate Services segment, which continues to thrive.

We had indicated that the EBITDA contribution at Move would improve and that revenue growth would accelerate.

And I'm pleased to report both goals have been achieved this quarter, though we will certainly not allow complacency or smugness to be characteristics of realtor.com.

While print advertising remains challenging, we saw some moderation in declines across our mastheads this quarter.

And notably, the News and Information Services segment was a source of growth this quarter both in revenues and EBITDA, driven by the muscular performance of in-store product revenues in News America Marketing, healthy circulation revenue gains at The Wall Street Journal and a thoughtful cost-reduction program.

Speaking of The Wall Street Journal, we continued to build on the momentum of digital sales, adding more than 300,000 subscribers year-over-year.

Digital now accounts for 53% of total subscriptions, up from 44% last year and 38% 2 years ago.

In fact, we added even more subs this quarter than in the second quarter, suggesting that the appetite for premium news and thoughtful commentary is undiminished.

This success also is a result of innovation with our paywall, including the elimination of Google's so-called First Click Free scheme, which is in need of serious scrutiny as it punishes premium users.

But whiners are not winners, so I'm pleased to report we are making progress on our development of a new digital advertising platform focused initially on the U.S. market using the data, content and audiences of our businesses to ensure brands have real reach and are not subject to guilt by association.

This initiative follows our News Connect offering in Australia, and we will provide more information about the emerging platform in the coming months.

We have been among the strongest and most consistent voices in making clear that the digital duopoly has commodified content and has created an ecosystem that is dysfunctional and defiled.

The consequences of commodification include fake news, rampant piracy and brands juxtaposed with jaundice on extremist websites.

The current content configuration is detrimental to consumers, to businesses and to societies.

We are in discussion with Facebook and Google about premium content and brand-enhancing environments, and hope that they will assist in fashioning a healthier ecosystem that rewards creators and content and not just the distributors, the pirates and the perfidious.

At this stage, it is fair to say that Facebook is more responsive and responsible, but we will highlight these issues until there is meaningful movement.

Let us talk to -- turn to our businesses in more detail.

At Move, home to realtor.com, reported revenues increased by 15% in the quarter, accelerating from fiscal Q2 levels.

Excluding the $4 million from TigerLead, which we sold in November, growth was 20%, and the company contributed segment EBITDA growth consistent with our expectations.

Average monthly uniques increased from 44 million in Q2 to 55 million for the quarter, including a monthly record of 58 million in March.

And we saw improvements in page penetration and audience engagement, both crucial for lead volume, which also improved in the quarter.

Overall, according to comScore, in March, realtor.com led by Zillow and Trulia are in engagement by 30% based on minutes spent and has continued to gain share in the sector.

The new Advantage product, launched in December, is performing in line with expectations and we saw acceleration in growth in the Connections for Buyers products driven by higher lead volume and increased customer flow.

We continue to fortify realtor.com with products like Sign Snap, Street Peak and enhanced 3D listings, which will move from beta to full release in the coming months.

We added photography and local data to off-market listings, which helps drive engagement.

And we focused on the speed and reliability of our products to ensure an optimum experience for users.

Looking ahead, Move is expecting to make further developments in the software and services business, an essential element of our crucial relationship with the community of realtors who are center to real estate transactions.

REA, which completed the sale of its European businesses in December 2016, posted strong revenue and expanded EBITDA contribution in its core Australian business, driven by product mix and the adoption of premium products.

REA achieved record visits in March and materially outperformed the competition.

The company provides a deeper content experience, complementing our mastheads in Australia and has strengthened its premium product offerings, launching Front Page, allowing vendors to showcase properties on the homepage based on the user's previous search behavior.

At News and Information Services, revenues grew almost 3% and segment EBITDA, excluding the settlement charge at News America Marketing in the prior year, would have expanded more than 30%.

As mentioned, the decline in print advertising moderated, while we implemented cost-reduction programs such as The Wall Street Journal 2020 initiative, which is designed to reduce expenses but imperatively create a contemporary flow of content for readers and clients.

We are clearly cost-conscious but intend to bolster the quality of our unique content across our mastheads and across platforms around the world.

At Dow Jones, ad revenue trends improved relative to the prior quarter.

Meanwhile, the risk and compliance business remains particularly healthy with revenue growth over 20% and prospects certainly appearing positive.

The risks are real and compliance is essential.

As mentioned, there was robust digital subscriber growth at The Journal with a more than 30% increase versus the prior year.

And the momentum has continued.

In fact, not only did we have the 300,000 year-over-year increase, but this also set a record in digital subscriber growth since the launch of our sales and subscriber reporting metric.

Overall, circulation revenues expanded in the mid-single-digit rate.

The New York Post digital network continues to make headway and digital now accounts for more than 15% of its ad revenues.

We were also pleased to report last month that Page Six TV has been adopted in 185 markets, covering 90% of the country, in advance of its launch this fall.

That augurs well for the program and the brand.

In the U.K. at The Times, total print circulation volumes grew high single digits, and market share improved once again.

In digital, The Times and The Sunday Times continued to grow subs and ARPU.

While in print, The Times had the largest year-on-year growth among paid for national papers in the quarter.

At The Sun, the number of monthly unique visitors burgeoned, reaching 80 million globally in March, doubling over the past year and up fivefold since the paywall was removed in late 2015.

The Sun has already surpassed the Mirror as the second most-read news website in the U.K. and is working closely with talkSPORT to drive incremental traffic and revenues.

Times for the U.K. economy remain positive, despite the fear mongering ahead of the Brexit vote and regardless of the inevitable uncertainty caused by the upcoming election.

Conditions for our mastheads in Australia remained challenging, although print ad declines moderated and circulation revenues were relatively stable, thanks to a lift in digital subscribers and price increases.

Our team in Australia is focused on digital subscriptions, which generated 27% growth year-over-year, including ARM, to more than 330,000.

Meanwhile, news.com.au retained its ranking as the preeminent news site in Australia.

News America Marketing saw marked growth in the in-store business, which is benefiting from product enhancements and an increase in new CPG campaigns, consumer goods companies and retail as they're increasingly recognizing NAM's prowess at the point of purchase.

Checkout 51 also grew in the quarter and now has 13.4 million U.S. and Canadian members, more than double the total of last year.

It has become a key part of NAM's integrated digital offering.

In fact, Checkout 51, along with Storyful and realtor.com, are working closely with NAM on joint sales pitches with major brands to better leverage data and drive incremental revenue.

The News and Information Services segment also benefited from the acquisition of Wireless Group in the U.K. and the Australian Regional Media business, both of which contributed revenues in the quarter.

Storyful and Unruly continued to expand their collaboration and are working more closely than ever with many of our businesses.

Storyful recently announced a new partnership with Weber Shandwick, illustrating how it has expanded its work to assist companies with concerns over brand safety and furnish vital intelligence on issues related to risk and compliance.

In Book Publishing, there was solid revenue growth at HarperCollins, which showed improvements in digital sales and the enduring success of Hillbilly Elegy and Hidden Figures.

We also had the release of Veronica Roth's Carve The Mark.

We are looking forward with much anticipation to read some new books by Michael Crichton, and David Walliams in May, and note the continuing strength of HarperCollins' Christian base in Nashville.

We are confident that the international footprint we acquired through Harlequin, combined with our evangelical expertise, should lead to increased business in Latin America where the evangelical movement is particularly influential.

At Fox Sports, advertising remains strong compared to a relatively subdued TV marketplace in Australia.

Ratings were 6% higher in March year-over-year, thanks in part to the successful launch of the FOX LEAGUE channel, its dedicated rugby league offering.

Fox Sports also launched the first overseas over-the-top partnership with IFL, so people around the world can watch the world's most captivating contact sport.

At our 50%-owned Foxtel, the company continues to invest in top-tier sports and local content, further differentiating its unique package from lower-quality [sports content] players.

Foxtel Play will have an upgraded user interface and additional HD options, as Foxtel seeks to provide a compelling offering for customers.

Having acquired the popular Sky News, we have added to our portfolio of cable networks in Australia, and we'll be able to consolidate costs and share digital and video learnings across our platforms.

We have just announced the transfer of FOX SPORTS News to Sky News, which will allow us to maximize synergies and scale.

Looking once again at the quarter as a whole, we see the enduring value of our content, the power of our platforms, the benefits of assiduous cost constraint and the many-fold ways our businesses are combining and complementing each other, and crucially creating long-term value for all our investors.

Covenantally, we were pleased to announce the addition of former U.S. Senator, Kelly Ayotte to our Board, following the departure of Elaine Chao who became the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in the new Administration.

We wish her well in her profoundly important role.

And I would finally like to say a word of thanks to the new News Corp's first CFO, the venerable Bedi Singh, who did much to assist in launching the company.

And I'm very proud and delighted to introduce our new CFO, Susan Panuccio, a longtime colleague at News Corp.

Susan brings to this important task a savvy strategic sensibility and a rigorous attention to both detail and the larger landscape.

She has experience in both the U.K. and Australia, as well as insight into the importance of digital transformation of the news and property businesses.

For all these reasons and more, I have great confidence not only in her, but in the prospects for this business and its value to our shareholders.

Thank you for your support.

And so please welcome Susan.

Thank you for those kind words, Robert.

I'm delighted to be here today, and looking forward to getting to know all of you in the very near future.

This is a unique time for the company as we continue the transformation to a digital-first company, and I'm really excited to have taken a broader role across the company.

While I'm very new to this role, there are a few observations I would like to make.

We are a company that has global scale, customers and data sets that could be better monetized.

As Robert mentioned, one near-term initiative will be the launch of our global digital advertising platform in the coming months.

But there is a lot more we can do, including more effectively sharing resources, standardizing subscription strategies and better leveraging our content across the mastheads in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia.

There is more we can do, and are doing, on costs.

While we need to make sure we continue to invest in digital initiatives, I also think there is plenty of room to improve efficiencies and remove legacy costs across the business, and much of that is underway.

Revenues from printed and news mastheads remain a very important source of revenues.

However, we do need to be focused on driving incremental and higher-margin revenue streams ranging from custom content to higher-margin brand extensions, such as Sun Bets in the U.K.

And finally, I will be open to new ideas and new ways that will drive higher growth and value per share in the long term.

With that as an introduction, I'll now turn to the operating results for this quarter.

We reported fiscal 2017 third quarter total revenues of around $2 billion, up 5% compared to the prior year.

Currency had a $21 million negative impact on revenues with modest year-over-year improvement in the Australian dollar, outweighed by weakness in the pound.

Reported total segment EBITDA was $215 million compared to a loss of $122 million in the prior year, which included a onetime settlement charge of $280 million at News America Marketing.

Excluding the charge in the prior year, segment EBITDA would have risen 36%.

For the quarter, loss per share from continuing operations was $0.01 versus a loss of $0.26 in the prior year.

Adjusted EPS from continuing operations was $0.07 versus $0.04 in the prior year.

Turning now to the individual operating segments.

In News and Information Services, revenues for the quarter rose 3% to approximately $1.3 billion versus the prior year.

Within segment revenues, advertising rose around 4%, or 5% in local currency, driven by News America Marketing and contributions from acquisitions, partially offset by print advertising declines, although the rate of advertising decline moderated this quarter across all territories.

Circulation and subscription revenues decreased 1% yet rose 3% in local currency, driven by the acquisition of Australia Regional Media, or ARM, price increases and higher paid digital volume, offset by lower print volumes.

News and Information Services segment EBITDA this quarter was $123 million, up from $93 million in the prior period, excluding the $280 million News America Marketing settlement last year.

We saw strong EBITDA contribution at News America Marketing led by in-store product and modest year-over-year improvement at Dow Jones and U.K., offset by declines in the Australian business.

We also had an adjustment to the deferred consideration for Unruly, which positively impacted EBITDA by around $12 million this quarter.

Looking at performance across our key units.

At News America Marketing, the business continues to perform well with revenues up 13% versus the prior year, driven by the strength of in-store products, which more than offset declines in freestanding insert (sic) [in-store] products.

Some of the growth was timing-related but we continue to see strong growth due to the increased number of retailers and higher brand spending.

To give you a sense of the timing-related difference, we estimate that approximately $15 million, less than half of News America's revenue growth this quarter, was timing-related which will unwind in fiscal Q4.

Checkout 51 continues to expand, now reaching over 13 million members at quarter end and continues to increase visibility and gain traction with our CPG clients.

At Dow Jones, total advertising revenues declined around 12% due to print advertising, which was a marked improvement from the fiscal Q2 performance which saw advertising down over 20%.

Pleasingly, the mix of advertising is changing.

In fact, fiscal Q3, approximately 15% of total advertising at Dow Jones is what I would call emerging or nontraditional advertising revenue.

This includes custom content conferences and, of course, programmatic advertising, and these will remain a big focus going forward.

As Robert mentioned, we are continuing to see strong paid volume growth in digital at The Wall Street Journal where total subscriber volume across all formats reached 2.2 million, a 12% year-over-year increase, driven by higher digital-only sales, which rose over 30% versus prior year.

Circulation revenues at Dow Jones grew mid-single digits due to both volume gains and higher subscription pricing led by The Wall Street Journal, which grew high single digits.

Professional information business revenues remained relatively stable with the prior year, similar to last quarter, as we continue to see very strong growth in risk and compliance, together with a strong pipeline for new business.

At News Australia, advertising revenues rose $8 million or 5% and were down 1% in local currency.

The increase in advertising revenues was driven by the acquisition of ARM, which contributed $20 million in the quarter.

Advertising revenues at our other Australian mastheads remain challenged but showed a sequential improvement, partly due to the moderation in the real estate and employment categories, particularly at the local advertising level.

Circulation revenues at News Australia increased $7 million or 8% and were up slightly in local currency, primarily due to the acquisition of ARM, which contributed $6 million.

Cover price increases, including one taken for the weekday Australia in February and higher paid digital subscriptions, largely offset print volume declines at our existing mastheads at around 7%.

On cost initiatives within the Australian business, we are on track for an additional AUD 40 million in cost savings in the second half of fiscal 2017 and continue to seek additional cost reductions, although some of that saving is being reinvested to accelerate our digital transition, given that the Australian business has the highest proportion of print advertising across our mastheads as a percentage of overall revenue.

At News UK, while reported advertising revenues decreased 18%, in local currency, it was closer to a high single-digit decline, also a modest sequential improvement from the low teens last quarter.

Reported circulation revenues at News UK fell 10% versus the prior year quarter but rose 4% in local currency, as cover price increases more than offset single-copy volume declines at The Sun.

At Wireless Group, revenue was flat as growth in talkSPORT was offset by the absence of revenues from Sport magazine, which was closed in February 2017.

We continue to make good progress on the integration of Wireless into the News UK group.

Turning to the Book Publishing segment, revenues were $374 million, up 4% compared to the prior year.

We saw strong contribution this quarter from titles, including Hillbilly Elegy and Hidden Figures.

Revenues also benefited from the release in January of Veronica Roth's Carve The Mark.

However, sales of this title were off to a slower start than anticipated.

Segment EBITDA rose 3% to $37 million, as the revenue growth was offset by an unfavorable cost of sales mix this quarter.

Total digital revenues, which include audiobooks, were approximately 22% of consumer revenues, with digital sales rising modestly over the prior year quarter driven principally by audiobooks.

In Digital Real Estate Services, reported revenues for the segment increased $25 million or 13% to $219 million, and adjusted revenues increased 15%, which excludes the impact from the divestitures of REA's European Real Estate portals and News' sale of TigerLead last quarter as well as currency impacts and acquisitions.

Reported segment EBITDA was $75 million, up $36 million or 92% versus the prior year, benefiting from strong contribution at both Move and REA, including lower legal costs at Move.

Adjusted segment EBITDA gained 68%.

REA's revenues grew 10% due to an increase in Australian residential [depth] revenue, resulting from favorable product mix and higher prices and a $6 million impact from favorable foreign currency fluctuations.

The growth was partially offset by a $9 million or 9% decline in revenue resulting from the divestiture of the European business.

It's important to note that the REA Group will report results that present Europe as discontinued operations.

So you will see a bigger variance this quarter between our reported revenue growth than in the past.

Please refer to REA's earnings release for more detail on this.

As expected, REA results showed strong growth in EBITDA contribution and strong operating margin for the Australian business.

Move revenues rose approximately 15% to $100 million versus the prior year, reflecting continued strong performance from Connection for Buyers and higher non-listing media revenue.

TigerLead, which was divested in November, contributed $4 million in the prior period.

Average monthly unique user growth at realtor.com remains strong, up high single digits year-over-year to $55 million in the quarter with $58 million in March.

In Cable Network Programming, revenues rose 14% to $122 million compared to the prior year quarter from the inclusion of $9 million related to the acquisition of Sky News and favorable foreign currency fluctuations.

Adjusted revenue growth was 1%.

Segment EBITDA in the quarter was flat at $34 million and up modestly on an adjusted basis.

With respect to earnings from affiliates, equity income was negative $23 million this quarter compared to positive $2 million last year.

Our equity loss pickup this quarter included a $7 million negative impact related to a change in the fair value of Foxtel's investment in the Ten Network and a further $10 million loss related to Foxtel's Presto wind-down, consistent with our expectations.

Both numbers reflect our 50% share.

Regarding its operating performance, Foxtel ended the quarter with 2.8 million total subscribers, with closing cable and satellite subscribers down 1% compared to the prior year, but saw small subscriber gains from the prior quarter.

In the third quarter, cable and satellite churn was 16.1% compared to 14.3% in the prior year, but encouragingly showed improvement late in the quarter with the beginning of winter sports and the launch of the FOX LEAGUE channel.

Foxtel revenues for the quarter increased 2% to $591 million but were down 3% in local currency.

And EBITDA decreased 9% to $131 million and was down 13% in local currency due to the decrease in revenue and increases in programming costs, principally in sports.

Cable satellite ARPU for the quarter was down approximately 2% to around AUD 86.

And finally for Q3, capital expenditures from continuing operations year-to-date were $168 million, lower than $188 million -- $180 million in the prior year.

I would like to now turn to the upcoming fiscal fourth quarter.

You may recall that the prior year included a 53rd week, which contributed $112 million in revenues last year.

In addition, we also recognized a gain of $122 million related to the Zillow settlement.

Absent those items, I have a few more observations.

In the News and Information Services segment, overall advertising trends at this point are relatively similar to the fiscal third quarter for our key mastheads.

As I noted, News America Marketing had a timing benefit this quarter, which will reverse in Q4 of around $15 million.

And we will also be lapping a price increase of The Sun, Monday to Friday in the prior year.

In Digital Real Estate Services, we expect to see improved revenues and continued strong EBITDA contribution at realtor.com.

REA expects phasing of costs to be higher in the fourth quarter versus a year ago and the third quarter, due to increased investment in product innovation and associated marketing expenses.

REA will discuss this in more detail during their quarterly conference call shortly after ours.

At Book Publishing, the environment remains relatively healthy in the fourth quarter.

However, we will have fewer front-list titles than the prior year.

Notable releases for Q4 will include Dragon Teeth from Michael Crichton and David Walliams' The World's Worst Children 2 due in late May.

In summary, the quarter demonstrated a few things: We are a company that is evolving with a unique mix of assets that is continuing our push towards digital; digital real estate continues to expand.

News contribution to EBITDA is now solidly positive, as we had anticipated, and the segment is helping to reshape News Corp's long-term growth trajectory.

We are taking action to stabilize the News and Information Services segment.

We're still facing an uncertain print market, and we must be diligent on costs and accelerate digital as quickly and as aggressively as we can.

With that, let me hand over to the operator for Q&A.

(Operator Instructions) At this time, we'll move to Entcho Raykovski with Deutsche Bank.

My question is around News and Information Services.

And in particular, were there any synergies that are being generated from the recent acquisitions of ARM and Wireless?

And in particular as I look at the News Australia operations, the cost-reduction target of $40 million that you have in place at the moment, does that take into account the benefits of the combination with ARM?

Or do you think these -- there's further cost benefit to come?

Just in relation to News Australia and the ARM acquisition, so I think what we'll find in the current year is that we will have integration costs largely offsetting any synergies that we'll get, but we're expecting to see benefits coming through in the next financial year.

So they're not included in the $40 million target that we're quoting.

So we are on track to deliver that $40 million target for this financial year.

In relation to Wireless, I might hand over to Robert to talk about that integration.

Yes.

Thanks very much, Susan.

Entcho, I think what we are seeing is what we hope to see, which is a real complementarity in offering of the 2. You're all seeing talkSPORT drive readers to The Sun, and The Sun drives business to talkSPORT.

We're also seeing portfolio ad pitches with the Wireless Group, The Sun, Storyful, Unruly, generating new business.

And obviously, it's the early stage of the new partnership in the U.K. But Rebekah Brooks and the team are doing an excellent job in ensuring the teams are talking to each other, working with each other and generating returns to shareholders.

We will now move to John Janedis with Jefferies.

Robert, there's been a lot of discussion, as you know, in the industry about the news cycle and the impact on circulation.

So based on what you're seeing at The Journal, how do you think about the medium-term subscriber opportunity?

And can you talk about to what extent there's some sort of positive cross-platform advertising benefit?

So we're certainly in the middle of an interesting cycle.

There is no doubt a premium on premium news, and we are seeing that in the continuing growth in paid digital subs at The Wall Street Journal, up to 34% year-on-year.

And for us, there's an added benefit, which is we obviously see those new subscribers as a potential pool of customers for an upsell to even more premium products, whether it be through to a high net worth individuals, semiprofessional fund managers or those specialists like yourself in finance, tech, commodities, FX, whatever.

So for us, there's a double benefit.

We're introducing a new generation of readers into the highest-quality paid content, and we're able to then bring them further into the Dow Jones fold with our traditional professional information business products.

We'll now move to Curry Baker with Guggenheim Securities.

I believe in her prepared remarks, Susan, you said that the 53rd week will be $112 million revenue impact.

Is there any way you guys can quantify the EBITDA impact of the 53rd week in the fiscal fourth quarter as well as any color by segment, if you have it?

I think we -- in previous calls, we've obviously quoted $112 million revenue number, but we don't talk about what the EBITDA impact is.

I think the best way for you to look at that is to apply the normalized year-to-date margin, and that will give you a good proxy for the EBITDA impact.

And the next question will be from Brian Han with Morningstar.

Can you please talk about the $10 million increase in EBITDA loss in the other division?

And is that an area that we should be focused on, to see the progress of your cost drive across the group?

So the other division includes our corporate costs and our headquarter costs and our strategy teams, but it also includes a severance amount this quarter as well, which is what you're seeing and why you're seeing the increase coming through.

And that will be from Greg Huber -- sorry, Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners.

Just curious, any updated thoughts, expectations here about the $1.85 billion of cash that sits on the balance sheet here?

I mean, it's a huge amount of cash in balance sheet for roughly 4 years now.

Is there any -- with the change in CFO, has the mindset changed at all here to potentially be buying back any stock?

Or what's the game plan here?

Because I get this question a lot from investors.

Thanks, Craig, and thanks for passing on the question, Craig.

It's very salient one.

It's a situation we constantly have under review.

As you know, we have a semiannual dividend in place.

The big buyback is up to around $71 million, the provision for buybacks of $500 million.

But we've divided our outlook really into 3 areas: opportunistic acquisitions, internal investment and cap returns.

And if you look at the 3 main investments we have made, which is realtor.com via Move, Harlequin and Wireless Group, you would have to agree that they've played crucial role in transforming our business.

There's no doubt that the -- if you netted out the $600 million we invested in realtor, that fundamentally transformed the company, and as you can see, given the increasing growth in both revenue and EBITDA at our real estate digital businesses in general.

And the ability that Harlequin has given HarperCollins to move from 1 language to 17 languages is quite profound.

And that has also increased our digital footprint.

And you can see the early signs in the U.K. of the value of the Wireless Group.

So we will continue to be opportunistic, but we'll continue to have the situation under review.

And Craig, I think just to -- I echo Robert's thoughts on those matters.

But I think, just to reiterate my point that I made at the start of my statements, we will continue to look at opportunities that drive higher growth and value per share in the long term, and we will look at everything.

(Operator Instructions) We'll now move to Raymond Tong with Evans & Partners.

Just a question on Move.

And can you maybe talk with a little bit more detail in the acceleration of the revenue growth at Move, sort of talk about some of the new products there and also a sense of just the EBITDA growth contribution from Move during the quarter, please?

Ray, the contribution to EBITDA growth was $22 million for the quarter.

We continue to expect EBITDA growth and revenue growth in Q4 without giving a detailed forecast.

What we're seeing is that the traditional products like Co-Broke, which is up 34% year-on-year, are doing well.

The newer products are also taking off as well as our experience in advertising, in traditional media is enabling us to get better-quality yields at Move.

So there was a 33% growth in non-listing media revenues.

So all in all, that ability that we have to learn from our experience at REA, our ability to generate audience through our masthead platforms, which gives us a marketing edge, and our ability to create a site that's not just a listing site for realtors and vendors but also a site that is holistic real estate experience with more news, more analysis than any other, means that we certainly have a comparative advantage going forward.

This will be a follow-up from Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners.

Yes, I was just curious, in the newspaper division, if you exclude the acquisitions and adjust for currency, how much were the costs down year-over-year, please?

So excluding the acquisition, we think the costs are down probably low single digits, predominantly being driven by Dow Jones.

But they've seen a good decrease in costs quarter-on-quarter, year-on-year around 4%.

We're also seeing some cost decreases coming through in relation to some of the other divisions within that segment, but it's predominantly being driven by The Wall Street Journal.

I'm sorry, is that also adjusting for currency as well, down low single?

Yes, correct.

We'll move on to Brian Han with Morningstar.

Just one follow-up question, you guys mentioned before there are opportunistic acquisitions.

Are there any such opportunities in Australia, if the recently announced media reform package gets passed?

We don't speculate on speculation.

All I would say on the subject of media reform is that really, we do need comprehensive holistic wholesale media reform in Australia.

We have a set of laws that are more for the Gutenberg era than the Zuckerberg era.

And as long as there is wholesale reform, we'll be supportive of it.

This will be from Eric Katz with Wells Fargo.

Just touching on the digital subs in the News and Info Services, you clearly gained a lot from your newspapers over the last couple of quarters, and I'm wondering how that's impacting your advertising, particularly CPM's inventory.

Just what kind of momentum are you seeing?

I think the -- it's a very good question, it's -- and it's one that we're spending a lot of time and energy across our mastheads looking at our ability to increase yields, as we identify reader demographics.

And that's obviously at the very heart of the new advertising platform that we're building here in the U.S. We know that across the U.S. monthly, we, on our sites, including realtor, we have around 220 million visitors combined with our newspaper masthead audiences.

Now that is a valuable source of audience for advertisers.

And we're doing our very best to monetize it in a way that makes sense to advertisers, who increasingly find themselves on third-party networks unable to be sure of the company that they're keeping.

I think I'd also add that we are seeing good digital growth across our mastheads.

So we are seeing growth across News Australia and News UK; on a year-to-date basis, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

And also pleasingly, we're seeing ARPU growing.

So I think that equally is important on the circulation side, as what it is on the advertising side.

At this time, we have no further questions in the queue.

So I'll turn it back over to you, Mr. Florin, for any additional or closing remarks.

Great.

Thanks, Matt.

Thank you for all participating today.

Have a great day, and we'll talk to you soon.

And again, that does conclude today's conference call.

Thank you all for your participation.