GCI New Gannett Co Inc

News Corp swung to a loss in the September quarter amid a challenging print advertising environment for its newspaper unit and foreign currency headwinds.

The company—which publishes The Wall Street Journal as well as other newspapers in the U.K., Australia and the U.S.—reported a net loss of $15 million, or 3 cents per share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $175 million, or 30 cents per share.

Revenue fell 2.4% to $1.97 billion, as gains in the digital real-estate business weren't enough to offset declines in the news and book-publishing divisions.

Factoring out certain items, the media company posted an adjusted per-share loss of 1 cent. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected total revenue of $1.96 billion in the quarter and break-even on an adjusted, per-share basis.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell 21% on the year to $130 million due to weak print advertising and increased programming-rights costs at the company's cable network programming unit.

"While the quarter presented some obvious challenges, particularly in print advertising and the weakness of the pound sterling, our revenues were relatively stable, underscoring the strength and scale of our portfolio and shift to digital," News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson said in a statement.

The news and information-services segment, which accounts for roughly two-thirds of News Corp's total top line, reported a 5.3% drop in revenue to $1.22 billion. Advertising revenue fell 11%. The revenue drop comes amid an accelerating decline in print advertising spending across the industry.

Last week, New York Times Co. reported a 19% decline in ad revenue in its third quarter. At Gannett, print ad revenue dropped 15%, dragged down by a 35% plunge in national print ads. Tronc Inc., owner of the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, reported an 11% decline in ad spending in the last quarter.

This has led to a round of belt-tightening among publishers. The Journal has offered buyouts and warned of layoffs. Gannett recently announced layoffs of about 380 employees and the Times has said it expects to downsize and reallocate resources in its newsroom early next year.

Revenue in News Corp's book publishing segment totaled $389 million, 4.9% lower than the year-earlier period when sales were helped by the release of Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman."

The small-but-growing digital real-estate business also reported an 18% rise in revenue to $226 million.

Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 07, 2016 17:25 ET (22:25 GMT)

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