News Corporation
Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 9 Aug 2007

[Journalists:]

Ken Lee - Reuters Miriam Steffens - Sydney Morning Herald Aline van Duyn - Financial Times Seth Sutel - Associated Press Joe Menn - Los Angeles Times Nishant Bahia - National Public Radio Andrew Clark - The Guardian Gillian Wee - Bloomberg Robert MacMillan - Reuters Georg Szalai - The Hollywood Reporter Max Bowie - Inside Market Data Staci Kramer - Paidcontent.org

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for standing by and good morning, good afternoon and good evening to our global audience today. Welcome to News Corp announcing their fourth quarter 2007 earnings release. (Operator Instructions) With us today, we have Mr. Dave DeVoe, Chief Financial Officer; we have Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer; and of course, Mr. Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO. Here with our opening remarks is Executive Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Gary Ginsberg. Good afternoon, Gary, and please go ahead, sir.

[Gary Ginsberg:]

Good afternoon, Brent, nice to have you back with us. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and fiscal year end operating results. As Brent just told you, we have Rupert Murdoch, Peter Chernin and Dave DeVoe on the call with us today. We'll begin with Dave providing some financial analysis for the quarter and for the year that may not be obvious from a reading of the results. Rupert will then talk about some of the financial and strategic highlights for the year and offer some brief remarks on the company's recently announced acquisition of Dow Jones. Peter will then give some forward perspective on the company's television, cable and film businesses, three of our biggest growth drivers. And then as Brent said, we'll go right into your questions first from the investment community and then from the press. Today's call is of course governed by the Safe Harbor provisions. On this call, we will make statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, including those described in News' public filings with the SEC that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements. This call may contain a discussion regarding the previously announced agreement to acquire Dow Jones. We urge you to read registration statement and proxy statements to be filed by the transaction participants with the SEC when they become available as they will contain important information about the transaction. Any discussion regarding the transaction on this call does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities, and any offer and securities will only be made in accordance with requirements of the Securities Act of 1933. With all of that legalese, I will turn the call over to Dave.

[David DeVoe:]

Gary, thank you and good afternoon everyone. As you have seen in today's earnings release, News Corporation once again posted great results with strong revenue, operating income and net income growth for both the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year, as well as record cash flows from operations and cash flow from operations plus capital expenditures, which we refer to as our free cash flow. Let me start with our full-year results. For the year, we achieved 15% operating income growth, consistent with the financial guidance we provided you a year ago and reiterated throughout the year. This strong financial performance was driven by 13% revenue growth with Sky Italia and our Cable Networks producing the largest year-over-year gains. Our equity earnings of affiliates also performed well with equity income for the year slightly over $1 billion, and this is also a 15% increase above last year's level and these results were lead principally by higher contributions from DirecTV. Bottom line, the company reported full-year net income of $3.4 billion, a 22% improvement over last year’s net income from continuing operations of $2.8 billion. The related earnings per share for the year was $1.08, a 24% improvement over last year’s comparable EPS. Now let me turn first to our fourth quarter. We enjoyed again a very strong fourth quarter with operating income of $1.22 billion. This is up 18% over the fourth quarter a year ago. The improvement for the quarter, as it was for the year, was led by considerable profit increases at the Company's Cable Networks and Sky Italia segments, but also reflects strong growth with the company's new media and also at our print businesses. Contributions from our associates were in line with last year. Our other income and expense was unfavorable due to the mark-to-market adjustment on our exchangeable debt securities and our tax provision benefited from the resolution of various tax matters. As a result of these items, net income from continuing operations for the quarter was $890 million, a 24% improvement over last year's fourth quarter result. Earnings per share for the quarter was $0.28, up 22% over last year's EPS. Given you all should have a copy of our earnings release, I will not review all of our business segments. However, I would like to provide context on the recent performance of two of our businesses. Let me start with the only segments which had lower earnings in the quarter

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Thank you, Dave and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As Dave has just outlined, fiscal 2007 was a very good year financially and operationally. It was a very important year for us strategically as well with the announced signing of the merger agreement between News Corp and the Dow Jones Company, our earlier deal with Liberty Media and our latest moves to divert our interest in non-core assets like Gemstar, News Outdoor and some of our smaller TV stations. The financial success we have enjoyed should come as no surprise. It's a steady continuation of the growth we've sustained, really since 2003. In fact, over the last four years using almost any metric, few if any companies in our sector have matched our revenue, operating income or EPS growth; revenue growth of 13% a year on average, average operating income growth of 17% and earnings per year from continuing operations up 38% per year, on average. At the same time, we have all evolved strategically through investments and divestitures to better align the company with future opportunities and to optimize its deployment of capital. Several of the changes initiated over the last few years should bear fruit in fiscal '08. Most significantly, we expect to close on our Liberty transaction sometime before the end of this calendar year. Once completed, we will effectively lock in a tax-free gain of roughly $3.5 billion generated since we acquired our DirecTV ownership in December of 2004. As we reduce our exposure to the U.S. television market, we're also looking to penetrate new TV markets overseas that represent faster growth opportunities. It's one of the things that I think consistently separates us from our peers

[Peter Chernin:]

Thank you very much, Rupert and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Now that Rupert has taken you through some of our strategic initiatives and growth drivers for the upcoming year, I would like to take a few minutes to provide you with some color on a few of the other businesses that were included in the guidance that Dave provided earlier. So let me start with our Cable Network business. I think it's a business that probably gets a little less public focus these days because of its steady and enduring growth over the past few years, but our continued investment and our continued operational momentum has given us an enormous growth driver. This past year, fiscal '07, four different areas in our Cable division each grew by more than $50 million in operating income, so our growth in this area is pretty widespread and broadly based. Those four areas were our FOX international channels, our FOX News division, our FOX sports channels and our entertainment channels, led by FX. So let me give you a little detail on each these areas to give you a sense of how much momentum we have in this segment. Starting off with the Fox international channels, this is a business that really did not exist before 2000 and we actually have not spoken about much, and therefore has not garnered a lot of attention. Today, our international channels, and these do not include STAR, these are just the Fox international channels inside of the Cable group, these businesses today generate more than $120 million in profits and show no signs of slowing down. In fact, the business grew more than 80% between '06 and '07 and we expect it will grow another 50% in fiscal '08. Since many of you have not been exposed to this business, let me give you just a few of the details. Inside FOX international we operate more than 80 different channels and provide services around the globe, predominately under two broad brand names; under various FOX brand names and under various National Geographic brands. We are currently the largest multichannel operator in Latin America, in Italy, and we boast channel and Internet products in most other major market of the world, including substantial operations in Asia, in Central and Eastern Europe, in Spain, in France and the UK. In the upcoming year, we expect to expand further with the launch of at least seven additional channels in places like Russia, Turkey, Latin America, Japan and Asia. We are still in the very early stages of our development with this business and we expect revenues to ramp up quickly as we continue to grow our affiliate rates, expand geographically and increase our advertising revenues. I think the success of this group is a prime example of our ability to grow our business organically by capitalizing on underserved marketplaces. Turning to our news business, FOX News, this will be the single biggest growth driver within cable this fiscal year, and frankly, for several years to come. There's a couple of reasons for this robust growth. First in fiscal '08, we will have the full-year effect of our recently completed FOX News affiliate negotiations with both Cablevision and DirecTV, and also one or two smaller operators. We also are going to reap the benefits of what appears to have been a very strong upfront for FOX News, which included high single-digit CPM increases. Finally, we're benefiting from our current ratings growth and what we expect will be a very strong year because of the coverage of politics. The impact of these revenue gains and a relatively stable cost base should push FOX News margins into the high 30% range as we see our revenues continue to grow. Turning to our sports business, our RSMs delivered increased results coming off of both increased advertising, and I think there we're seeing the benefits of the appeal of live sports programming and we're the largest broadcaster of live sports programming in the world to advertisers and also, increased affiliate rates. In addition, we renewed long-term rights agreements with more than a dozen professional sports teams during fiscal '07, and this is locked in long-term stability for the business. Moving into fiscal '08, those two areas increased, advertising revenues and increased affiliate revenues, coupled with ratings growth that we're seeing in baseball, ratings growth that we're seeing on SPEED Channel and our soccer channel should give us a very strong year going forward. Moving to the Entertainment sector, in fiscal '07, FX delivered record affiliate and advertising revenues, coming off of its highest rated primetime season ever. This is now solid throughout the entire season with a top five basic cable network, and I think is generally regarded as the premier general entertainment service in basic cable. Our ratings momentum has already carried over into fiscal '08 with the strong debut of Damages last month, which has been our strongest premiere on FX I think in about four years since the premier of Nip/Tuck four years ago. In that general Entertainment area, we're also seeing the growth of the Reality Channel, which is starting to turn into a real earnings powerhouse for us, and also increases in National Geographic ratings and the ad market. So, again, another area in the cable area where we expect great growth momentum for this year and years to come. Also in the Cable area, we will continue our strategic investment to create the next generation of growth drivers as these ones provide us growth in the current period. One of the things that I think has differentiated Fox from our peers is our consistent ability to launch new cable channels. We have launched at least one new cable channel a year for the past five years and it's one of the things that allows us to maintain our growth trajectory. Fiscal '08 will be no different with the creation of I think two very important new channels

[Operator:]

Indeed, well thank you very much Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Chernin, and our host panel, we do appreciate your time and that presentation and update today. Ladies and gentlemen, as you just heard, at this point we do welcome and encourage any questions or comments you may have. Once again, we will be taking questions first from members of the financial community, and then moving immediately to members of the press that have joined us today. (Operator Instructions) First in queue, we go to the line of Michael Nathanson - Bernstein. Please go ahead, sir.

[Michael Nathanson:]

Thanks, Brent. I have one for Dave. As part of your guidance, you just mentioned that you have about $340 million in investment spending in fiscal year '08. I wonder if you have any idea what that number would have been in fiscal year '07? Is My Network TV in those numbers for the development spending?

[David DeVoe:]

I missed the second part of your question.

[Michael Nathanson:]

The question is, do you include My Network TV in development spending when you give the total?

[David DeVoe:]

No, My Network is not included in it. The number in fiscal '07 would have been about $180 million. Just one thing to point out, of that $340 million, roughly half of that is related to the UK print project. So in fiscal '09, that $170 million disappears.

[Michael Nathanson:]

Can I just follow up on My Network TV? What where the losses this year? Can you give me a sense of what they were in fiscal year '07?

[Peter Chernin:]

I don't think we have broken it out but look, I think it's safe to say that it has been a pretty big disappointment for us this year. Although it's also safe to say that even in the fourth quarter, our losses decreased by more than 50%. So the programming changes that we made in March which have significantly reduced our costs while at the same time improved our ratings performance should see us reduce our losses significantly in the coming year. But let's be clear, those were not tolerable losses for us last year. We think we've taken actions to improve them dramatically, though we still have a ways to go and we're determined to get there.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much, sir. Representing Pali Capital, we go to the line of Richard Greenfield. Please go ahead, sir.

[Richard Greenfield:]

A couple of questions, one just related to free cash flow which was quite a bit stronger than I think the expectation you had heading into the year. I wondered if you could give us a sense of what drove that free cash flow, whether there's any timing issues in there? Also, it looks like there was a significant increase in the other investment spending in your cash flow statement. Wondering if you could just give us some visibility to what was in there? Just a separate topic on the spread between your two share classes. It has widened back out pretty substantially now to an 8% spread. Could you give us any sense of where you think the buyback goes over time and how you can close this spread and why you think the spread still exists at this level? Thanks.

[David DeVoe:]

Rich, there was a bit of timing in the free cash flow, but not much. There was a bit of CapEx that rolled over into the current year. A good portion of that improvement was we had lower taxes than we had anticipated. We're pretty conservative when we give guidance, as you know, and we did a great job really managing our inventories and receivables over the course of the year. So we're doing a really good job on that. In looking for next year, my guess is we're going to be a bit below that, and that's principally because next year will be probably the highest CapEx year that we're going to have as we complete the press project in the United Kingdom. Our taxes will go up somewhat, again, we will work on trying to moderate it. I think within the investment within other, the largest single investment was our investment in Fairfax, which we sold.

[Richard Greenfield:]

And then just on the spread between the share classes?

[David DeVoe:]

I don't even know how to address it. We have been dealing with this and trying to reduce the spread for the last two years, and one of the reasons when we relocated to the United States. I mean part of it now is technical, a little bit of it's technical because now in Australia when they decide to put us back in the index, it's indexed for the voting shares.

[Operator:]

Next representing Merrill Lynch we go to the line of Jessica Reif-Cohen.

[Jessica Reif-Cohen:]

Thank you. A question for Peter and one for Rupert. Peter, on the $800 million to $1 billion targeted revenue for FIM, could you talk about the '08 drivers besides Google, whatever they are, direct advertising on new businesses? Rupert on Dow Jones, I think you did a great job outlining the drivers and how it fits into News Corp. I was just wondering if you could be more specific in terms of the savings in dollars and what you think the revenue upside might be? If you could outline for us what rights CNBC has and how FOX Business can use The Wall Street Journal, if they can?

[Peter Chernin:]

I will start with the FIM stuff quickly, Jessica. The expected increases in FIM should be about 50% coming off the Google deal, because not that much of the Google deal was actually in fiscal '07, and about 50% coming from rest of the business. Of the rest of the business piece, continued growth in advertising continued just from both additional page views. We are experiencing great general growth and we're also looking at SDC and improved targeting to significantly increase our ECPMs on the business. The other area of the business that's growing healthily right now in terms of revenue is our international business. We keep launching new territories, but we're seeing some real growth coming out of the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain. Some of those bigger countries are now starting to generate some much-improved advertising economies. So the overall revenue increase is about half Google, about half advertising, and that advertising is a function just general growth, improved targeting and monetization through the SDC and the increase of ECPMs because of it, and international growth.

[Rupert Murdoch:]

On the CNBC contract, it's a five-year run. It's between GE and Dow Jones. As far as brand names are concerned, it's pretty all-encompassing but only covers actual news and access to reporters on business news. There's a lot of other news and a lot of other things we can do to associate ourselves.

[Peter Chernin:]

I would add, Jessica, that we have been spending a lot of time, Rupert and I, with Roger and his team going through the plans for the Business Channel. We have enormous confidence in their ability to put together a terrific differentiated product that is really going to stand out in this market, generate ratings and consumer excitement on its own, and we'll look at anything that comes from Dow Jones as gravy as it develops.

[Jessica Reif-Cohen:]

Then just on the specifics of Dow Jones in terms of savings and revenue upside over the next year or so?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I cannot really be specific about the revenue upside because that relates to the advertising market which in print as you know, has not been good, and to where we can go with the web properties which we think is very, very considerable. In actual savings, this is a rough statement, but in operations and in cutting out a lot of the functions of Dow Jones as a public company, this is something well in excess of $50 million to be saved.

[Jessica Reif-Cohen:]

And then timing of the close?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We would have it in three months, or in two months, but let's say three to four months; by the end of the year.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much, Ms. Reif-Cohen. Next representing Goldman Sachs we have a question from Anthony Noto. Please go ahead, sir.

[Anthony Noto:]

Thank you very much, a couple of questions about FIM. The 20% operating margins in 2008, does that include a loss internationally, and so the actual domestic margins are quite higher than that? If so, how much would you still be losing internationally? Domestically, the revenue in other accelerated to 88% growth, and I know that includes another a lot of other factors besides FIM, but 88% year-over-year growth compared to 77% growth last quarter, I was wondering if you could talk about the sources of that acceleration, whether it's a benefit from profile targeting or it's Google or just better sell-through in general?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

On the international, I don't think we expect to lose any money at all. The revenues are very good and are helping. When we said 20%, we said well above 20%. We were not specific because it depends on Google writedowns and so forth. Peter might want to add to that. Targeting is not really in force here.

[Peter Chernin:]

What I would say is international is a rapidly evolving area. So we lose a little bit of money as we go into a territory, and then those territories mature fairly quickly. So as I said earlier, some of the bigger, well-developed economies that we've been in for more than six or nine months are actually very profitable for us. As we go into a new territory, we invest a little bit to get there. But overall, those margins are not as aggressive as our U.S. margins yet. But places like the UK are getting there pretty quickly. We also said well above 20%, so I don't want to sort of say that that's going to be our margin, we're just trying to put a fairly conservative number in there. Look, we will continue to invest in FTC and targeting and other monetization efforts. We're also continuing to invest in new product groups and I think we are extremely proud of our achievements with the video side of MySpace, MySpace TV, which we are now a firm second place to YouTube. We're starting to see huge increases in the number videos uploaded. We've made a number of content deals with various suppliers. So we think that has been a great investment. We're investing in various apps and various widgets. So while we have this big growth in revenue, we also think it's important that we continue to invest in the product and continue to invest in our ability to monetize the product. So we don't want to over promise and sort of choke the business on margins in the short-term because we believe that this is going to be a huge growth driver for years ahead for us, and we need to keep investing to make sure the product is great and our ability to monetize it is great. The other improvement, just to your question about what the improvement in the other category has been. We had a big cricket investment that we had to writedown last year, and that does not recur in '08.

[David DeVoe:]

So what you have, in the current quarter, you've got $75 million of revenues and zero earnings because we took the writedown of that contract in the third quarter.

[Anthony Noto:]

One other question maybe on the Wall Street Journal online. Rupert, have you thought about the strategic debate of whether or not opening up the Wall Street Journal Online to be a free service would increase the opportunity there compared to its currently closed garden approach?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Yes, we are currently debating that, both within Dow Jones and in News Corporation and we've certainly come to no decision yet. It would be a very, I think, an expensive thing to do in the short-term. In the long-term, it may be a wonderful thing to do. But we're looking at it closely.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Doug Mitchelson - Deutsche Bank Securities.

[Doug Mitchelson:]

Given the strength you outlined and all of the strategic moves you've already announced, I would think the best use of cash would be aggressively repurchasing shares. It looks like you will have over $5 billion of cash once all your asset sales and acquisitions are done. I think Rupert you made a comment about finishing out the current authorization, but can you give us some background as to how we should think about cash deployment looking forward?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Yes. We have said we will complete what we've committed to, and of course when we have done that, we'll look at it again and see what the price of the stock is, where we are, and our opportunity. We think that in terms of gross debt, if we look at that, we're at about the right level. You could borrow another $1 billion perhaps, but nothing massive. We certainly don't want to go to banks to borrow money to buy back shares. In this market, cash is going to be king.

[Doug Mitchelson:]

I meant to be implicit in the question is since you've been so busy on the strategic side, is there anything else out there on the acquisition side that you are finding tempting?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We don't have anything going on at the moment at all, but we're open to ideas and open to opportunities.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Jolanta Masojada - Credit Suisse.

[Jolanta Masojada:]

I wondered if Mr. Murdoch would be kind enough to outline some of the advertising assumptions underpinning your guidance for the full year, and specifically your expectation for advertising growth in the UK, the US and Australia?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

The advertising, of course varies widely here, and that guidance is based on the upfront, what has been booked and our early experiences operating in this year. As for Australia and Britain, they were very carefully based on estimates of those economies and how we're operating. So far, we're certainly making our numbers, or beating them in our newspapers in Australia and in Britain.

[Peter Chernin:]

Jolanta, I would just say that our guidance assumes generally about an 8% advertising growth across the company. As Rupert said, most of that based on the upfront, and also based on the current strong -- extremely strong -- scatter across all of our television businesses in the U.S., and that feels like a good assumption right now.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Adam Alexander - JB Were.

[Adam Alexander:]

Sky Italia, the momentum in that business appears pretty strong at the moment, just wondering the outlook for FY '08. Can we expect a similar sort of growth mid-400,000 sub adds, churn of around 10% and similar ARPU, just give us about another $200 million in operating income?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

That's approximately our expectation, that's about it.

[Adam Alexander:]

When do think would be the ideal time to IPO that business?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Maybe never. We might take in for a small amount a good Italian partner for political reasons, but I think to have 30,000 or 40,000 shareholders there doesn't do anybody any good. It would just be a pain in the neck.

[Peter Chernin:]

We're certainly not interested in IPO’ing it for financial reasons. We believe it's going to be a very strong growth driver for years to come, and we want to hold onto that inside the company.

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Absolutely.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Jonathan Jacoby - Banc of America.

[Jonathan Jacoby:]

Again on MySpace, AOL and Yahoo! talked about display ad weakness on their prime inventory. Are you seeing that as a benefit to you right now as MySpace ramps and being able to make advertisers more comfortable with the medium? And then on TV syndication for next year from the TV studio side, I believe King of the Hill is in the pipe. Is there anything else for FY '08?

[Peter Chernin:]

Yes. I would say, first of all, I think one of the things, certainly our anecdotal information tells us that one of the problems that Yahoo! and AOL have been struggling with is the migration of regular advertisers to the social networks, primarily MySpace. So I think we have seen the benefit of people who wanted to reach mass audiences used to feel like the only place to do that was through the portals, and I think you've seen, particularly those people interested in reaching younger demographics, shifting their money from the portals to the social networks and particularly MySpace. So I think we have a beneficiary of that and we would expect to see that continue. We would also expect to see our monetization of those dollars improve dramatically through more targeting and through FTC. In terms of syndication, actually King of the Hill has been in syndication for four or five years, although ironically, is having a very strong year this year. The big change in our syndication lineup in fiscal '08 is that Family Guy goes into syndication next month. So we will see that go into our fiscal '08 results.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Alan Gould - Natexis Bleichroeder.

[Alan Gould:]

Rupert, if you look out five years at your print business, not just The Journal, but your global print businesses, how much more digital are they going to be? What percent of revenue do you think will be digital as opposed to the way it is today?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I have no idea. It's going to be considerably more. Our revenues on our newspaper websites are doubling every year at the moment. Now the figures are small compared to what the print revenue is, but clearly it's going to get a lot better. All indications are that people who go to newspapers sites are relatively very high demographics with much more than the average web visitor. So we think they're desirable to advertisers, we can get good cost per thousands and we just have to keep improving those sites all the time so that we get more unique visitors.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Tuna Amobi - Standard & Poor’s.

[Tuna Amobi:]

I had one question on the guidance. It just seemed like the guidance sounds relatively cautious here, even given the investments that you spoke about, it just seems like with Sky Italia ramping up nicely, the benefit of the Google deal, the nice price increases at FOX Net and all of the other FOX News affiliate fees kicking in for the full year... I was just wondering why you feel that you can't do much better than the low teens that you spoke about? Separately, I guess this is for Rupert. Can you perhaps suggest what you think --

[Rupert Murdoch:]

If you add back the $340 million we talked about in developing new properties, it adds up to more than 20% of guidance. So one thing we don't want to do is come back to you and take guidance down. We haven't done that yet and we don't intend to.

[Tuna Amobi:]

Okay, that's fair enough. Separately, I was wondering, can you comment on what you think the value of MySpace today might be, and if you strategically might have any interest in contributing that stake to a large portal to accelerate monetization of that asset? I think Yahoo! has been mentioned in that context. Any comment?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

No. It's certainly very, very valuable, and people are kicking around huge figures for that and other properties. People are talking of properties that don't even make any money yet but are worth $1 billion. Someone the other day said $25 billion to $30 billion, but he didn't come forward with any offer.

[Tuna Amobi:]

Thank you.

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I don't know. Look, it's a lot of money. We don't know.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Spencer Wang - Bear Stearns.

[Spencer Wang:]

Peter, can you just update us on the negotiations with the Writer's Guild? I think that's still ongoing. If you cannot get to an agreement, is that potentially problematic for the industry? Secondly, with respect to Dow Jones, Rupert, are you committed to keeping all of the assets of Dow Jones, things like the community papers?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I will answer that very quickly, that last bit. No, we will probably be selling the local newspapers fairly quickly. But outside of that, yes, we think we will be keeping everything and developing it.

[Peter Chernin:]

The Writer's, very slow, not particularly productive negotiations so far. My guess is that contract expires at the end of October. I don't believe they will go out on strike at the end of October, but I don't know. I'm probably a little more pessimistic about a general industry strike closer to the expiration of the Directors and Screen Actor Guild, and maybe two out of three of them will go out together May/June of next year. I don't think it will have much, if any, impact on our business this year, although there has been a lot of accelerated production across the industry by companies like ours, both on the film side and the television side, in order to make sure that if there is a strike, we're well positioned for it.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Alex Pollak - Macquarie Bank.

[Alex Pollak:]

I have a couple of questions. The first one concerns whether you think that the growth in web advertising, how much of that is going to come from video on the newspaper web sites? How much do you think that's going to come out of screen ads, like video ads on newspaper websites? It seems to be like a contestable market on the newspaper websites which you did not have before broadband came along. My next question was, we've seen this whole sub-prime thing on Wall Street. Do you see it having any impact in terms of the ad market on Main Street?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

It goes beyond Wall Street. I think it goes into Australia too, doesn't it? The consensus opinion here is that it is a matter which the financial markets will be able to handle, without affecting the general economy to much. There are pessimists who go further than that, and there are optimists who are really not as strong as that. But it's going to make money more expensive.

[David DeVoe:]

We're not seeing any effect of that at all on our businesses, at least right now.

[Rupert Murdoch:]

None at all. I mean, the state of the advertising market suggests confidence and optimism out of the general economy with big ads for business.

[Peter Chernin:]

Yes, and as for video advertising, I would expect there to be dramatic increases in video advertising across all properties on the web. Obviously, newspaper and print properties, but also things like MySpace, things like ours sports web sites, things like IGN and I think it will perhaps rival search as the fastest-growing area of advertising in the industry over the next several years. We think that we are uniquely positioned to benefit from that.

[Alex Pollak:]

By extension, I guess it may be the largest single component of the ad market online as well. Would that be a fair statement?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

It's too early to say that.

[Peter Chernin:]

I don't think it will surpass search. I think search will remain the largest segment, but I think you will see video advertising begin to move up and compete and probably ultimately surpass regular display advertising.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Jason Bazinet - Citigroup.

[Jason Bazinet:]

I guess when all the Dow Jones stuff was hitting the newswires, I don't know if it got enough attention, but can I just go back to the decision on your part to divest of the Russian outdoor business, the smaller TV stations and Gemstar? I really was just more curious about the strategic thoughts behind each one of those asset sales and then potential uses of cash. Are you just going to use the proceeds to build up your cash balance? Thanks.

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I think it's not because of Dow Jones. There are different reasons in each case. But we thought that to put the whole Gemstar thing behind us, and it was a good thing and we have had several inquiries about it, so we're going ahead to negotiate and see what's there. In terms of outdoor, I think we're just a little nervous about Russia, although I believe there's going to be a great boom there, whoever buys it will do very well.

[Peter Chernin:]

I think in general, it's sort of what Rupert alluded to in his comments, which is we're continually rebalancing our assets, trying to make sure that we have maximum exposure to growth areas like digital and television in developing parts of the world and that we're constantly looking at our more mature assets and making sure that we have the right mix of cash flow that comes out of those, along with growth drivers in position for the future.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Jason Helfstein - CIBC World Markets.

[Jason Helfstein:]

Two quick questions, one on guidance. Can you talk about what your newspaper assumptions are perhaps underlying the guidance? Should we expect growth out of that business, or does the upgrade continue to weigh on that? So basically, should we assume any margin expansion there? Secondly, as we have been digging into Dow Jones, we've found that they are paying vendors like Yahoo! Finance to actually carry their stories. I would think, given that they provide all of the value, it should be the other way around. So maybe talk about how you think about that, because there seems to be a lot of way to extract value out of that where Dow Jones is not to today. Thanks.

[David DeVoe:]

The newspapers, there's going to be some increase in earnings in the current year, but the large increase in earnings in the newspaper segment will come in fiscal '09 when this $170 million of charges that we have in the current year disappear.

[Jason Helfstein:]

That excludes the gain, correct?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We've had very large depreciation charges in Britain, but we are doing well. Our papers are improving, we have been in a more dominant position than we have before in a very, very competitive market. So we are confident about the future there. In Australia, it's the same, I think it will reflect the state of the economy, and we will grow. The media situation there is fairly static in that there are no more television stations. The web businesses are growing. We're doing everything we can there and supporting the newspapers, but there, the circulations are holding well. In case of The Australian, it is growing virally without any promotion. We're pretty happy about the situation with newspapers as they stand. They're not going to have the growth outside of the one big jump in Britain. They're not going to have the growth that we're going to have on the web. But they're still going to be very, very important cash contributors to the company.

[Jason Helfstein:]

Can you answer the Dow Jones question?

[Peter Chernin:]

We just think there's great value in their financial information and we'll maximize it.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Fraser McLeish - ABN Amro.

[Fraser McLeish:]

Just on the outdoor business that's up for sale, I was wondering if you could just give us some rough ideas of what sort of operating profit that's doing within your other category at the moment, and maybe some ballpark idea of valuation?

[Gary Ginsberg:]

We don't break it out.

[David DeVoe:]

We do not break out that business given that we're in the middle of trying to sell the asset.

[Fraser McLeish:]

Just on STAR then, you talked quite a bit about that in your Q3 results. That's been a bit disappointing and I think you said the operating profit was down for the year. Have these issues been sorted out, and can we expect to see that return to growth next year?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Yes, we have had almost a complete management change in India where we took our eyes off it and things started to go wrong there. We have a new team in now which we're very, very confident of. They're fine people, and we have got some things to absorb this year in the changeover, but we'll at least hold our profits there and increase them slightly, I think. But, we'll be losing a little bit of money and we're investing also in Indonesia and new channels.

[Peter Chernin:]

I would expect the results to be flat in fiscal '08, but that being said, I agree with Rupert. We've actually made tremendous progress there. I think that we're making the following changes this year which I think should out us back on aggressive growth probably in the latter part of '08 and into '09, which is we need to change our programming mix. Our programming, while the ratings are still strong, has gotten far too expensive and we need to get new lower-cost programming in there to lower our expense base and also fuel our ratings. Secondly, we're looking at launching multiple new channels in fiscal '08 in India, so that is why the profits won't grow in '08, but that will lead to significant increased profits beyond that. We're seeing distribution increase, not only in India through Tata Sky and through the growth of cable, but also in Indonesia and the rest of the region. So we feel like the bad news is behind us and we're back, we're making the investments and we have the strategy in place to get this thing growing aggressively in some of the most exciting economies in the world going forward.

[Gary Ginsberg:]

Brad, we'll take one more question from the investment community and then go right to the press.

[Operator:]

Very good, and thank you very much to all of our participants and your interest in the call today. As you just heard, our final financial question is from Anthony DiClemente - Lehman Brothers.

[Anthony DiClemente:]

Rupert, you mentioned that the broader advertising environment is one of confidence and optimism, and I just thought that is somewhat divergent from some of the reports from local advertising firms like radio and TV stations, newspapers, outdoor. I'm just wondering, some of these local advertisers are being affected by dislocation in the categories of financial services and real estate. Is there not weakness in those categories broadly? And if there is not, why don't you think that News Corp is seeing it relative to your competition? Thank you.

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I think there's always change in advertising between the different sectors and where it comes from. We're talking very broadly. Our figures are excellent, our reports from all of our sales directors are excellent. In fact, our bookings are first class. So we can only say how it is affecting us.

[Peter Chernin:]

I think if you look at, first of all, the only one of those sectors we're in is the local station business. We are the market leader. We're growing market share virtually every quarter, and we don't have any real estate business on any of those local television stations. The only softness there is sort of comps in political spending last year and this year, and we expect to see political spending really take off in the latter part of this year in those local stations. So overall, that market is sort of flat. We're outperforming the market probably by a share point or two and growing market share, but we expect that market to accelerate as political, the one area that is down right now and as that ramps up, we expect that market to accelerate. Most of our other categories are actually up right now, including most importantly autos, which is our single largest advertiser and is actually a category that we've seen growth in this quarter.

[Operator:]

(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from Ken Lee - Reuters.

[Ken Lee:]

I have one question, getting back to the CNBC contract and Dow Jones. Are you currently negotiating a buyout, and what do you estimate that would cost?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

No, we're not negotiating.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Miriam Steffens - Sydney Morning Herald.

[Miriam Steffens:]

How do you plan to leverage on the Dow Jones acquisition in Australia and the UK? For example, Stock Market Watch here or add Dow Jones copy to your news web sites?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Could you repeat that?

[Miriam Steffens:]

Are there any plans to leverage on the Dow Jones acquisition in Australia? For example, start MarketWatch, the web site here, or add Dow Jones copy to your news web sites?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We'll get around to that, but that's not high on our list of things to do.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Aline van Duyn - Financial Times.

[Aline van Duyn:]

I wanted to ask about possible expansion of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones in Europe. Are there likely to be different strategies for the UK and other parts of Europe? Specifically, I wondered if it's possible that expansion of The Journal in the UK market might have an adverse effect on The Times and potentially its audience or its advertisers?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We already have complete dominance, or very, very strong leadership, should we say, in senior management of business news in The Times over all other papers. So I don't see the Journal really affecting that.

[Aline van Duyn:]

But you wouldn't necessarily want to expand it, particularly in the UK, in order not to expect that, or you don't think it would affect that?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I don't think it would affect that.

[Aline van Duyn:]

So the UK is included in plans for Europe?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Absolutely.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Seth Sutel - the Associated Press.

[Seth Sutel:]

Just a question about branding. Rupert, you said you have hopes for expanding the potential for Dow Jones' brand. I wondered if you could talk about that a little bit more, and perhaps some specific ideas you might have about licensing the name in ways that have not been done before, say for investment products or on media outlets that might carry the Dow Jones or the Wall Street Journal brand name?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I don't see us licensing the name very much; it's too valuable. We want to use it in every way ourselves that is going to make money. But you're not going to see Dow Jones shirts or caps or anything like that.

[Seth Sutel:]

Is there something that you might be planning internally that you might be able to share with us about how to use either the Dow Jones or the Wall Street Journal name within News Corp?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We have our own very, very strong bands, and we'll march them all along together.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Joe Menn - Los Angeles Times.

[Joe Menn:]

I understand that you're still kicking around exactly what to do with The Journal in particular, but you have talked about going after The Times. Can you give us an idea of some of the things that are on the table? Would you consider cutting subscription costs or cutting ad rates to build up an audience over the next couple of years?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We're certainly not going to be cutting of our advertising or subscriptions.

[Joe Menn:]

I'm sorry -- could you repeat that?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

We're not getting into any price war or any cutting of prices for either advertisers or subscriptions.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Nishant Bahia - National Public Radio.

[Nishant Bahia:]

I had a question about [Ottawa] newspapers. Are there any plans to sell or divest from it?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Can you speak up a little? On [Ottawa] newspapers, you said?

[Nishant Bahia:]

Yes, and do you have any plans to sell or divest from it.

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Too early to say plans, but yes, we would expect to divest ourselves of those newspapers.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Andrew Clark - The Guardian.

[Andrew Clark:]

I wondered if you could just update us on your thinking as regards to Wapping in London. There have been some reports that you might move your entire newspaper operation away from Wapping. Is that the case and have you identified a new location for it?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

No, we have a very, very valuable property in Wapping. Of course, we're taking the printing away from it altogether. We may sell some land or if we were to move all the operations to somewhere else. I mean, there are the few proposals on the table, none of them have been accepted. But we're looking at our alternatives now.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Gillian Wee - Bloomberg.

[Gillian Wee:]

I'm wondering if you can be more specific about your plans to expand Dow Jones' Internet access? Also, could you talk about any hiring or firing plans you might have?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

No. Certainly, we don't have any firing plans at all. If people have been saying it is against their principles to work for me, we'll of course respect that but we are going to be in a hiring mode almost immediately.

[Gillian Wee:]

Okay, what about the Internet plans for Dow Jones?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

I don't want to discuss them further at the moment. We have a lot of alternatives, a lot of planning going on. We're not ready to announce, I'm sorry.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Robert MacMillan - Reuters.

[Robert MacMillan:]

I just wanted to ask regarding the editorial independence committee, after this news out about Nicholas Negroponte and the financial contribution that News Corp has made to his One Laptop per Child Program, I'm just wondering, especially after the Bancroft family's findings about editorial independence, what made you think that somebody like Negroponte was the right choice for your Board?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

That's the greatest line of bull I've ever heard. The One Laptop per Child For the World was something that Negroponte got about six companies to give him a $1 million startup, and then it has continued at about $1 million a year for three years. It's a great pro bono thing, and that is all there is to it. I can assure you that the other people there on the committee are much closer friends and associates of the editors than Mr. Negroponte is to me.

[Peter Chernin:]

There's no objective standard of independence as defined by the agreement, and so if they define him as independent, we define him as independent, then he's independent.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Georg Szalai - The Hollywood Reporter.

[Georg Szalai:]

Peter, I was wondering if you have any update on the day and date trials you've been running with cable companies? Anything new there, any plans to expand those trials a little further?

[Peter Chernin:]

I would say the results of that are highly inconclusive. Certainly, we are looking at always testing our models and making sure that we are maximizing our ability to get every penny out of every window we can, and we have agreed to continue the trials and I think we have actually expanded them into a couple of markets. But I don't think there's anything conclusive about the results of those trials yet, and certainly anything to suggest that we're about to change our overall strategy there.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from Max Bowie - Inside Market Data.

[Max Bowie:]

I wanted to ask a couple of questions about the plans for specific components of Dow Jones. Specifically, I'm thinking about the index business, and also the real-time newswires aimed at financial professionals. In particular, I'm thinking in the context of a report that I saw in The Telegraph claiming that Richard Zannino of Dow Jones had said that you want to be able to take on Bloomberg and Reuters in the provision of real-time financial news and data. Could you comment on that?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Of course, we would take on everybody in terms of the supply of real-time news. As for the indexes and the other things you've mentioned, they're valuable assets, which we intend to hold on to and expand. They're some of the attractions of the company.

[Operator:]

Your final question comes from Staci Kramer - Paidcontent.org.

[Staci Kramer:]

First, on the Wall Street Journal WSJ.com plans, who is making the decision on this? Are people from the Journal and Dow Jones going to be involved, or is this strictly a News Corp decision? The second question is, we've spent so much talking about FIM, I'm just curious as what you see as your best interactive effort of the U.S. and outside of MySpace international expansion?

[Rupert Murdoch:]

Let's just take the first thing. Dow Jones should not be separated from News Corp, it's part of News Corp. Our senior colleagues there, with senior colleagues currently at News Corp, will talk this over and we'll come to a final decision. But we'll do it collectively.

[Peter Chernin:]

As for our interactive assets outside of the U.S. and outside of I guess MySpace international, which is trying to preclude a lot of things, but I think there's a number of things we're very excited about. Whether it is hugely excited about the growth of broadband through BSkyB, hugely excited about all of our newspaper web sites, The Times, our Australian web sites, The Sun; hugely excited about some of our regular Internet investments, our realestate.com, our cars investment in Australia. So across the board and across what we have been trying to do is transform this into being a digital company, and virtually every part of the company has digital efforts outside of the U.S. We think we're making the progress on all of them.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much. Mr. Murdoch and our team, back to you for any closing remarks.

[Gary Ginsberg:]

I don't think we have any closing remarks, other than to say, as usual, if you have any further questions, feel free to contact us in New York. Thank you for your time and your attention for the call today.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, Rupert is making today's call available for digitized replay, it's for one full week, it starts at 9