Susan Panuccio
Chief Financial Officer at News
Thank you, Robert, for those kind words and thank you for a wonderful partnership and your guidance and support over the years, which I shall always value. It's been an absolute pleasure to work alongside you. As Robert said, after nearly eight years in this role and over two decades at News Corp, I am going to take some much desired time off to spend with my family. It has been a privilege to help Robert lead News Corp's transformation into the global news and information powerhouse it is today and I truly believe that the company has an incredibly bright future ahead. I have been so fortunate over the years to have had the support of both Rupert and Loughlin together with our Board of Directors and I would like to sincerely thank them all. Most importantly, I want to thank the talented teams past and present across News Corp, who I've had the privilege of working with together with my hugely talented and hardworking finance team, who I will miss most of all. I'm committed to supporting Lavanya during the transition and will be a willing resource going-forward. With that, I'll take you through the quarter.
We have now grown profitability year-over-year for six consecutive quarters by transforming the earnings profile of Dow Jones to focus more on B2B and information services, capitalizing on the upswing in Australian listing volumes at REA while reinvesting and enhancing Realtor's product offerings, revitalizing Harper Collins with strong digital revenue growth and signing a landmark agreement with OpenAI, leveraging the value of our incredible content across the news portfolio. This has helped to drive record first-quarter revenue and profitability together with our firm focus on the execution of our digital-first strategy, supported by focused M&A and organic reinvestments and disciplined cost initiatives, all underpinned by our three core pillars of Dow Jones digital real-estate and book publishing.
First-quarter total revenues were almost $2.6 billion, up 3% year-over-year and total segment EBITDA reached $415 million, up 14% year-over-year. Margins improved by 150 basis-points to 16.1%. These results also include $12 million of deal-related costs at REA, which impacted total segment EBITDA growth by approximately 3 percentage points. First-quarter adjusted revenues rose 2% compared to the prior year, while adjusted total segment EBITDA rose 12% versus the prior year. For the quarter, we reported earnings per share of $0.21 compared to $0.05 in the prior year. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.21 in the quarter compared to $0.16 in the prior year.
Moving on to the results for the individual segments, starting with Dow Jones. The first-quarter results were again strong at Dow Jones with revenues of $552 million, up 3% year-over-year and was the largest segment contributor to overall company revenue. Digital revenue accounted for 82% of total Dow Jones segment revenues this quarter, up 1 percentage point from the last year.
Our B2B products continue to grow strongly with professional information business revenues rising 8% year-over-year despite the impact of a customer dispute at Factiva. Approximately two-thirds of the growth within PIB was driven by volume due to upsells, new customers and products and retention remains very strong at nearly 90%. Revenue this quarter included 16% growth at Risk Compliance to a record $81 million and 11% growth at Dow Jones Energy to $68 million. Those results were particularly impressive in the context of the prior year revenue comparisons, which rose 23% and 20% year-over-year, respectively. At Risk and Compliance, demand remains strong from new and existing customers with recently launched products, including two AI-powered products, advanced screening and monitoring in partnership with Ripjar and Integrity Check developing robust sales pipeline. At Dow Jones Energy, revenue in the quarter also continued to benefit from the launch of new products and benchmarks together with price adjustments. As Robert mentioned, Dow Jones Energy acquired A2i Systems, a leader in AI-powered fuel pricing solutions that applies advanced predictive technologies to real-time fuel pricing data and the electric vehicle charging station market.
Within the Dow Jones consumer business, circulation revenues rose 1% versus the prior year as growth in digital-only subscriptions was mostly offset by lower print volume. Digital-only subscriptions improved by 15% year-over-year and by 99,000 sequentially. Bundling accounted for approximately 31% of the sequential digital-only volume growth in the first-quarter. Print volume declined by 16% year-over-year, partially offset by higher pricing. Digital circulation accounted for 72% of total consumer circulation revenue for the quarter.
The conversion to full or step-up pricing from our digital subscriptions added in the past year via introductory promotional offers has so-far exceeded our expectations, which will help to drive improvements in year-over-year circulation revenue growth throughout the balance of the year, which we expect will be more weighted to the second-half. Advertising revenues declined 7% to $85 million, lower than we had hoped with digital down 5% impacted by some softness in the technology and finance categories and lower programmatic sales this quarter. Digital represented 67% of advertising revenues, up from 66% last year, while overall advertising revenues accounted for 15% of Dow Jones total revenue. Dow Jones segment EBITDA for the quarter grew 6% to $131 million with costs increasing just 2% this quarter and margins increasing to 23.7%. B2B again accounted for the majority of the profitability.
Moving on to Digital real-estate. Segment revenues were $457 million, up 13% versus the prior year and 11% on an adjusted basis. Segment EBITDA was $140 million, up a robust 15% driven by higher profit contribution from the REA Group, which notably includes deal-related costs for the proposed right move transaction, which was subsequently withdrawn. Adjusted segment EBITDA grew 13%. REA had an outstanding quarter with revenues rising 22% year-on-year to $318 million, its highest-ever quarterly revenues. Growth was again driven by a combination of residential yield increases, continued strong growth in national listings and customer contract upgrades. Residential yield growth improved by 15%. New buy listings rose approximately 7% with Sydney up 11% and Melbourne up 9% with both markets achieving a 10-year high in September.
In addition, REA saw strong revenue growth at REA India and growth at financial services due to higher settlements and submissions. Please refer to REA's earnings release and their conference call for more details. Realtors revenues for the quarter of $140 million were down just 1% compared to the prior year as revenue declines continued to moderate for the fifth consecutive quarter. For the quarter, real-estate revenues fell 4%, driven by lower referral and lead-generation revenues, reflective of the broader macro trends. Lead volume fell 1%, while average monthly unique users for the quarter rose 2% to 77 million year-over-year and up 4% sequentially as realtor.com continues to maintain strong audience share despite much higher competitive marketing spend. Quarterrealtor.com strategy is successfully diversifying revenues to capture more of the total real-estate marketplace. To that end, the key adjacencies of seller, new homes and rentals collectively grew revenues this quarter versus the prior year, representing 19% of revenues and we anticipate continued strong growth going-forward this fiscal year.
Realtor.com remains focused on strengthening its core offerings and to be best-positioned for a recovery. We released several product enhancements this quarter, including a renovation designer tool powered by AI, dynamic mapping across all platforms and a visual-based keyword search that was released in beta, allowing consumers to use natural language to search for a home. As we expected, the rate of increased reinvestment at realtor.com moderated from the past two quarters with costs up approximately $2 million compared to the prior year. At Book Publishing momentum from the prior year continued with revenues of $546 million, up 4%, while segment EBITDA improved by 25% to $81 million. Margins expanded by over 200 basis-points to 14.8%, helped by a strong digital and back list performance. We continued to benefit from lower returns and operating cost moderation together with strong Bible sales and higher trade sales in the UK. Collins posted record digital revenues of $129 million, increasing 15% from the prior year, driven by the addition of Spotify and general audio book growth across all regions. In total, digital sales represented 25% of consumer revenues compared to 22% in the prior year. Audio books grew 26% year-over-year, while we also saw healthy growth in e-books this quarter. The back list contributed 64% of consumer revenues, up from 61% last year.
Turning to the Subscription Video Services segment. Revenues for the quarter were $501 million, up 3% compared to the prior year. On an adjusted basis, revenues rose 1% versus the prior year. Streaming revenues accounted for 34% of circulation and subscription revenues versus 30% in the prior year and growth again outpaced declines in broadcast revenues. Segment EBITDA in the quarter was $92 million, down just $1 million versus last year despite the inclusion of $11 million of costs related to Hubble for devices and marketing.
Excluding the Hubble investment, Foxtel's profitability would have been higher for the quarter. For the quarter, adjusted segment EBITDA fell 3%. Turning to News Media, performance was mixed with advertising conditions challenging, particularly in the UK, but that was more than offset by lower costs.
As a reminder, advertising revenues for the segment now account for only 7% of total company-wide revenue. Revenues for the quarter were $521 million, down 5% versus the prior year, while adjusted revenues fell 7%. Segment EBITDA, which only accounted for approximately 4% of total News Corp EBITDA showed improvement year-over-year driven by cost-saving initiatives. Adjusted segment EBITDA increased 7%.
Turning now to the outlook. Market trends remain mixed geographically, however, we hope to see continued improvements across the portfolio throughout the balance of the financial year. Some of the themes across each of our segments include, at Dow Jones, the team will remain focused on B2B growth, including upselling and new products across Risk and Compliance and Dow Jones Energy. We expect to see improved circulation revenue growth through digital subscription step-up pricing, albeit second-half weighted given phasing of renewals, and we'll continue to monitor those trends closely.
Expenses are expected to be modestly higher year-over-year due to investment, notably in B2B. However, we will continue to focus on cost efficiencies to drive growth. At Digital real-estate, Australian residential new buy listings for October are up 14% or 7% on a like-for-like basis, excluding additional working days. Realtor.com will continue to focus on technology improvements and enhanced content and product offerings. We hope to see some revenue improvements given expected interest-rate cuts and continued growth from adjacency. At Book Publishing, as I mentioned last quarter, we hope to see further profit improvements in 2025, albeit likely at a much more modest rate given more normalized prior year comparison. At subscription video services, the strategy remains to scale the streaming products while retaining high-value broadcast customers through improved ARPU and churn measures, and we continue to anticipate the rate of investment at Hubble to be lower during the remainder of fiscal 2025.
At News Media, despite a challenging advertising marketplace, we expect the segment to benefit from lower talk TV costs together with savings associated with the new commercial printing joint-venture with DMG in the UK and ongoing operational efficiencies will remain a focus. We expect other segment costs to be higher than last year due to ongoing AI-related costs, including legal costs.
With that, let me hand it over to the operator for Q&A.
