Susan Panuccio
Chief Financial Officer at News
Thank you, Robert. Fiscal 2021 fourth quarter total revenues were almost $2.5 billion, up 30%, the highest level since the second quarter of fiscal 2019 when we still owned News America Marketing. Total segment EBITDA was $210 million, up 8% versus the prior year, including record high segment EBITDA at Digital Real Estate Services. Total segment EBITDA included several nonrecurring items that depressed year-over-year comparisons this quarter, including $49 million of nonrecurring legal settlement and transaction costs. The results also include $11 million of one-off costs at Foxtel, which I'll come back to. Excluding the divestment of News America Marketing, acquisitions, currency fluctuations and the other items disclosed in our release, adjusted revenues increased 20% and adjusted total segment EBITDA increased 26%, driven by a strong performance of Digital Real Estate Services and a big year-over-year improvement in News Media.
For the quarter, we reported a net loss per share of $0.02 compared to a loss of $0.67 in the prior year. Last year's loss included $292 million of noncash impairment charges, primarily related to fixed assets in the U.K. and Australia. Fiscal 2021 results included a $64 million tax benefit due to an adjustment to valuation allowance in the U.S. and a $54 million noncash write-down of Foxtel's investment related to the Nickelodeon Australian joint venture, which is now covered through a separate affiliate agreement.
Adjusted earnings per share were $0.16 in the quarter compared to a loss per share of $0.03 in the prior year. Importantly, on a full year basis, free cash flow available to News Corp improved to $731 million from $180 million in the prior year, driven by higher total segment EBITDA, improvements in working capital and lower capital spending. Moving on to the results for the individual reporting segments, starting with Digital Real Estate Services. Segment revenues were $413 million, an increase of 74% compared to the prior year, a sharp acceleration from the third quarter growth rate of 34%. The performance was driven by another record quarterly performance at Move, together with very strong results at REA and to a lesser extent, a positive impact from foreign currency fluctuations.
On an adjusted basis, revenues increased 59%. Segment EBITDA rose 92% to $136 million or 99% on an adjusted basis. Move's revenues were $186 million, a 68% increase year-over-year with real estate revenues rising 77%, a significant acceleration from the 43% growth in the prior quarter. Move contributed $17 million to the segment EBITDA growth this quarter, achieving strong profit improvements despite $30 million of additional marketing expenses consistent with our commentary that the bulk of the expected increase in cost the second half would materialize in the fourth quarter. For the full fiscal 2021 year, Move increased its profit contribution by $100 million and was the single biggest profit driver across News Corp this year. We saw accelerated revenue growth across both the traditional lead generation and referral businesses in the quarter. The traditional lead generation business continued to benefit from strong agent demand, improved retention rates, higher yield and lead volume growth. Revenues from the referral business represented approximately 30% of total Move revenues, up from 25% in the prior quarter, partly due to seasonality with revenue growth driven by an increase in lead volume, record home pricing and higher referral fees.
In addition, advertising and rental revenue also showed strength during the quarter with the combined revenues more than doubling versus the prior year, only partially offset by the lower revenues resulting from the sale of top producer in the third quarter. The realtor.com's traffic reached a quarterly record of 106 million average monthly users, reflecting a year-over-year increase of 32%. Lead volume grew 14% year-over-year, a slower growth rate than the prior quarter as we lapped tougher comparisons with the prior year, which saw growth rates in the mid-30s coupled with ongoing industry supply constraints. Compared to the prior quarter, lead volume grew 8%. REA had an exceptional quarter with revenues rising 79% year-over-year to $227 million, including a $34 million or 27% positive impact from currency fluctuations. REA's results benefited from a material increase in residential premier debt revenues despite the absence of a price increase this fiscal year as part of REA's prior year COVID-19 support initiatives.
Australian national residential new buy listings for the quarter rose 54% with Melbourne and Sydney both up 64% as growth rates were somewhat exaggerated by the impacts from COVID-19 last year. Listing volumes were not only higher than the prior year, but also higher than fiscal 2019 and 2018 levels. Traffic remained robust with total visits to realestate.com.au for June at 123 million, up 8% year-over-year, and the visits multiplier against its nearest competitor reaching a record high of over 3.4 times in June. Please refer to REA's earnings release and their conference call following this call for more details. Turning to the Subscription Video Services segment. Revenues for the quarter were $542 million, up 33% versus the prior year and included an $85 million or 21% positive impact from foreign currency fluctuations.
The growth rate also improved sequentially. Adjusted revenues increased 12% with higher revenues from the streaming products more than offsetting the revenue declines from the broadcast product in the quarter, helped by the COVID-19 comparison. Total closing paid subscribers across Foxtel reached nearly 3.9 million as of June 30, with total subscriptions, including trialists, over four million and were up 40% versus the prior year, a material acceleration from the third quarter driven by continued growth in paid streaming subscribers and a year-over-year recovery in commercial, which was hit particularly hard from COVID-19 last year. Sequentially, paid subscribers rose 10%. Kayo total subscribers increased to almost 1.1 million and Binge total subscribers increased to 827,000. In the aggregate, total streaming subscribers reached over 2.1 million with paying subscribers up more than 150% to just over two million.
Streaming products are now delivering meaningful growth at scale and over 50% at Foxtel's total paid subscribers are now on streaming platforms. Residential broadcast subscribers declined to less than 1.7 million and commercial subscribers, while growing sharply year-over-year, continued to be impacted by COVID-19 restrictions and further lockdowns, notably in the accommodation sector. We saw broadcast churn moderate from the past two quarters to 17.1%, but up from 13.2% in the prior year, with the team continuing their focus on retaining high-value subscribers and driving ARPU growth. ARPU increased 4% to AUD81 from the prior year, partially offsetting broadcast subscriber volume declines. Segment EBITDA declined 37% to $66 million or 46% on an adjusted basis. As we communicated in our prior call, the decline was largely timing related, driven by $84 million of higher sports programming rights and production costs in the quarter, which we didn't have in the prior year due to COVID-19, together with higher marketing expenses.
In addition, Foxtel had approximately $11 million of one-time costs, mainly related to iQ3 and iQ4 promotional activity. Importantly, looking at Subscription Video Services for the full year, segment EBITDA increased 11% and was relatively stable in local currency, which includes the impact of $57 million of sports rights costs that were deferred from last year. The business also generated meaningful free cash flow across the year as increasing scale in streaming is leading to improved financial momentum within the company and lower capital intensity. Moving on to Dow Jones. Dow Jones delivered revenue of $449 million, up 18% compared to the prior year, including two months of revenue from the acquisition of Investor's Business Daily with digital revenues accounting for 72% of total revenues this quarter. Circulation and subscription revenues increased $34 million or 11%, driven by a 12% increase in circulation revenues, reflecting the continued strong growth in digital-only subscription for Dow Jones consumer products and the acquisition of IBD.
Dow Jones subscriptions increased to over 4.5 million average subscriptions to its consumer products in the quarter, up 19% from the prior year. Of that, nearly 3.5 million were digital-only subscriptions, up 26% year-over-year. IBD had over 100,000 subscriptions at quarter end with the majority being digital-only. Professional Information business revenues rose 11%, driven primarily by Risk & Compliance. Revenue growth from Risk & Compliance accelerated yet again with a year-over-year increase of 30% and marked the fastest growth in three years. For the year, Risk & Compliance reached approximately $195 million of revenues, up 23%.
Advertising revenues, which accounted for 23% of revenues this quarter, grew 45% to $103 million, the highest fourth quarter growth rate since News Corp's acquisition and was also higher than the fourth quarter fiscal 2019. Digital advertising posted record growth with revenues up 53%, with all categories performing above expectations. We saw a significant increase in yield, particularly in direct display. Print advertising revenues rose 36% year-over-year, primarily benefiting from the COVID-19 comparison. Dow Jones segment EBITDA for the quarter rose 15% to $69 million. EBITDA margins were relatively stable year-over-year as higher revenue growth was partially offset by the timing of marketing expenses for both brand and conferences, IBD integration costs and higher compensation costs. Costs were also notably depressed in the prior year due to COVID-19-related savings initiatives.
As we previously communicated, much of the cost increase this quarter were planned investments with some timing-related items. Dow Jones achieved the highest level of profitability since its acquisition this fiscal year, with margins expanding to nearly 20%, up almost five percentage points from the prior year. On an adjusted basis, segment revenues and EBITDA for the quarter rose 14% and 12%, respectively. At Book Publishing, for the fourth quarter, HarperCollins posted 21% revenue growth from the prior year and segment EBITDA rose 2%. Adjusted revenues grew 11% and adjusted segment EBITDA was flat to the prior year. The moderation in growth was impacted by the lapping of COVID-19 benefits in the prior year and mix of titles as last year's results included the Magnolia Table Volume II. Despite a difficult prior year comparison, book consumption levels remain high. Fourth quarter continued to benefit from Bridgeton but to a lesser extent than the prior quarter. While physical sales continued their momentum this quarter, digital revenues declined 3% in the quarter, reflecting a difficult comparison to the prior year when many bricks-and-mortar stores were closed due to COVID-19. E-book sales fell 11% in the quarter, but were partly offset by 11% growth in downloadable audio.
This quarter's results also include almost two months of results from the acquisition of the HMH Books & Media segment. We're excited about the acquisition and feel very confident about achieving the cost synergy target of $20 million within two years, and the team are actively exploring revenue opportunities, notably in licensing and animation. Turning to News Media. Revenues for the quarter were $595 million, up 21% versus the prior year, driven by the recovery of the advertising market from COVID-19-related weaknesses in the prior year. Growth in circulation and subscription revenues and a $73 million or 14% positive impact from foreign currency fluctuations. Growth was partially offset by a $58 million or 12% negative impact from the divestiture of News America Marketing in May 2020. On an adjusted basis, revenues rose 21% as we cycled the steep declines from COVID-19 last year. Circulation and subscription revenues rose 26%, driven by a $34 million or 15% benefit from currency fluctuations, strong digital paid subscriber growth and cover price increases as well as the recovery of print volumes from COVID-19-related weakness in the prior year.
Advertising revenues increased $31 million or 15% compared to the prior year, benefiting from the COVID-19 comparison with strong gains in both print and digital advertising revenues across key mastheads as well as a $29 million or 14% increase from foreign currency. Those gains came despite a $58 million or 28% negative impact related to the divestment of News America Marketing and a $10 million or 5% negative impact related to the closure or transition to digital of certain regional and community newspapers in Australia. On a reported basis, advertising revenues in Australia rose 34% or 14% in local currency, while News U.K. advertising revenues rose 86% or 65% in local currency. In the U.S., the trends remained strong with the New York Post posting 60% advertising revenue growth, of which digital advertising grew 65%. Segment EBITDA for the quarter was breakeven compared to a loss of $44 million in the prior year. In the Other segment, fourth quarter results include nonrecurring legal settlement costs. Excluding that charge, costs were modestly higher than we had expected, primarily driven by higher equity compensation across both cash and noncash expenditure.
I would now like to talk about some themes for the upcoming quarter and fiscal 2022. Visibility remains limited, especially in Australia due to ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns. That said, we are very encouraged by our July trends and are looking to build on that momentum into fiscal 2022. Our Digital Real Estate Services, as noted in their release, revenue in fiscal 2022 will benefit from a price rise in July for REA, and they also noted that new buy listings declined 3% in the month. Results will also include the acquisition of Mortgage Choice. Please refer to REA's press release for more details. At Move, we continue to see strong pricing in agent demand despite ongoing supply constraints. Like the fourth quarter, we expect to balance reinvestments with revenue growth as we focus on expanding into adjacencies. In Subscription Video Services, we are pleased with the ongoing performance of Kayo and Binge and the efforts to improve broadcast ARPU. We do expect a modest impact in the first quarter due to the current lockdowns in Australia, particularly in commercial venues. For the year, we expect costs in local currency to be stable with fiscal 2021 and revenue trends to continue to improve as the streaming products continue to scale. At Dow Jones, overall trends across the business remains strong.
We expect costs to increase as we focus on top line growth, but we will remain focused on margin expansion. Dow Jones will also see incremental content licensing revenues from Google. In Book Publishing, overall trends remain favorable despite lapping the benefits from COVID-19. While publishing faces a difficult comparison given its fiscal 2021 performance, we remain very encouraged by HarperCollins strong release slate and favorable secular trends. We also expect to see additional contribution from the acquisition of HMH. At News Media, we expect the segment to show notable improvement in fiscal 2022, driven by the contributions from the deals with Google and Facebook, improving advertising trends and disciplined cost action. capex for the year is expected to be approximately $100 million higher in fiscal 2022, partly driven by higher technology costs and the rollout of the IP-enabled iQ5 set-top box at Foxtel.
We will continue to manage spend closely throughout the year as we did during fiscal 2021. And finally, free cash flow generation will remain a priority in the coming year. The company ends the year stronger, better capitalized and with new levers of growth. We're excited about the potential for our recent acquisitions, including our announcement this week on Opus. And as Robert mentioned, we are now actively reviewing our capital allocation policy as we look to balance reinvestment and growth with healthy shareholder returns.
With that, let me hand it over to the operator for Q&A.
