Susan Panuccio
Chief Financial Officer at News
Thank you, Robert. As Robert mentioned, strong operating momentum that made last year so successful has continued into our first fiscal quarter results. Fiscal 2022 first-quarter total revenues were over $2.5 billion, up 18%, marked by higher revenue growth across all our key segments, notably at Digital Real Estate Services.
Total segment EBITDA was $410 million, up 53% versus the prior year, the highest quarterly growth rate since 2017 despite the challenges from the lockdowns in Australia and comparing against 21% total segment EBITDA growth in the prior year. Excluding acquisitions, currency fluctuations, and other items disclosed in the release, adjusted revenues, and adjusted total segment EBITDA rose 10% and 47%, respectively. Reported EPS was $0.33 as compared to $0.06 in the prior year. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.23 in the quarter compared to $0.08 in the prior year.
Moving on to the results for the individual reporting segments, starting with Digital Real Estate Services. Segment revenues were $426 million, an increase of 47% compared to the prior year. On an adjusted basis, revenues increased 29%. Segment EBITDA rose 16% to $138 million or 21% on an adjusted basis despite the higher investment spending at Move and REA and tough comparisons against the prior year cost declines implemented to counter the impact of COVID. Move's revenues were $180 million, a 30% increase year-over-year with real estate revenues rising 39% and accounting for 87% of total revenues. Revenue growth was again led by the traditional lead generation business benefiting from strong agent demand and improved sell-through and yields.
We are also seeing early success with the rollout of Market VIP, a hybrid product offered to Move's top-performing agents. The referral model saw strong revenue growth and accounted for approximately 32% of revenues driven by record home values and increased transaction volume. Revenue growth was partially offset by the divestiture of Top Producer in March, negatively impacting revenues by $5 million or four percentage points. With home prices at record highs and supply limited, lead volumes fell approximately 18% compared to over 40% growth last year, albeit with leads still around 15% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Encouragingly, new listings are up from their recent lows, and we have seen moderation of lead volume declines in September and October. Pricing remains robust given strong agent demand. REA had an exceptional quarter with revenues rising 62% year-over-year to $246 million, including a $7 million or 3% positive impact from currency fluctuations. Results benefited from $43 million of contribution from the Mortgage Choice acquisition and $8 million from the consolidation of Elara, which has been rebranded to REA India. The underlying performance was very encouraging with Australian residential revenue growth driven by an increase in debt penetration, price increase, and favorable product mix.
The revenue growth was also driven by an 11% increase in new buy listings despite lockdowns across multiple states, including restrictions on physical inspections in Melbourne. Melbourne listings rose 79%, while Sydney fell 7%. Financial services also benefited from higher settlements and submissions. 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 $510 million, up 3% versus the prior year, benefiting from higher streaming revenues and a modest benefit from positive currency fluctuations, partially offset by lower broadcast and commercial subscription revenues. On an adjusted basis, revenues were flat. Total closing paid subscribers across Foxtel reached nearly 3.9 million as at quarter-end, up 17% year-over-year with total subscribers, including trialists, approximately four million. The increase was driven by continued growth in paid streaming subscribers, partially offset by a decline in broadcast subscribers and commercial subscriptions, which were exacerbated by the impact of the lockdowns in Australia.
Kayo and Binge ended the quarter with approximately 1.1 million and 885,000 total subscribers, respectively. In the aggregate, total paying streaming subscribers were up more than 69% to nearly 2.1 million, and total streaming subscribers, including trialists, reached over 2.2 million. Streaming products in the aggregate reached approximately 54% of Foxtel's total paid subscriber base. Broadcast churn improved, declining to 14% from 14.6% last year and 17.1% in the fourth quarter. Broadcast ARPU increased 4% from the prior year to AUD82, mitigating subscriber volume declines consistent with Foxtel's strategy of focusing on higher ARPU subscribers and fewer low-cost offers. Foxtel continues to see an improvement in subscriber mix as the percentage of higher-valued, longer-tenured subscribers continues to rise with a corresponding decline in churn rates.
Net declines for residential broadcast subscribers moderated sequentially with 1.6 million broadcast subscribers at quarter-end. Commercial subscribers were down over 30% from the fourth quarter to 162,000, and we do anticipate a recovery for commercial subscribers in the second half with the easing of restrictions. Product innovation continued with the launch of iQ5, an IP-enabled set-top box; the announcement of plans to partner with Comcast and Sky on the launch of Sky Glass and the launch of a third streaming product, Flash, a dedicated live news streaming service, featuring more than 20 local and global live news services.
Segment EBITDA in the quarter was $114 million, up 46% compared to the prior year. The improvement was primarily driven by $34 million of lower sports costs benefiting from the $36 million of negative impact seen in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 related to deferred sports cost from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. Adjusted segment EBITDA increased 42%. Moving on to Dow Jones. Dow Jones delivered revenue of $444 million, up 15% compared to the prior year, with digital revenues accounting for 75% of total revenues this quarter, up two percentage points from the prior year. Adjusted revenues, which notably excludes the impact of IBD, rose 9%. As Robert mentioned, both revenues and profitability were the highest first-quarter results since its acquisition.
Circulation and subscription revenues increased 12%, including 13% circulation revenue growth, primarily reflecting the acquisition of IBD and the continued strong volume gains in digital-only subscriptions. Dow Jones subscriptions to its consumer products increased to an average of approximately 4.6 million in the quarter, up 18% from the prior year. Of that, over 3.6 million were digital-only subscriptions, up 24% year-over-year. IBD accounted for 100,000 digital-only subscriptions and 128,000 in total subscriptions. Professional Information Business revenues rose 13%, accelerating from the prior quarter. Revenue growth from Risk and Compliance increased 26% driven by a higher entry rate and strong growth across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
We also saw modest improvement at both Factiva and Newswires. Advertising revenues, which accounted for 20% of revenues this quarter grew 29% to $90 million, the highest first-quarter growth rate since acquisition. Digital advertising trends remained robust, up 38% on top of 14% growth in the first quarter of the prior year, and accounted for 61% of total advertising revenues. All categories performed above expectations, most notably in technology and finance, and we continue to see improving yields.
Print advertising revenues were robust, rising 17% year-over-year, partially benefiting from the COVID-19 comparison. Dow Jones segment EBITDA for the quarter rose 32% to $95 million, with EBITDA margins improving by almost three percentage points to 21% despite an 11% increase in total cost, which included IBD and higher employee costs. On an adjusted basis, segment revenues and EBITDA for the quarter rose 9% and 24%, respectively.
At Book Publishing, HarperCollins posted 19% revenue growth to $546 million, and segment EBITDA rose 20% to $85 million. Adjusted revenue and EBITDA rose 7% and 10%, respectively, versus the prior year. Despite a difficult prior-year comparison, book consumption levels remain elevated. Overall consumption across the industry remains higher than pre-pandemic levels and materially above the historical low single-digit type revenue growth. This quarter benefited from a rebound in Christian Publishing, which was more exposed to the closure of retail stores in the prior year and higher sales in the U.K. General book saw healthy growth, benefiting from new releases, coupled with higher backlist sales from the Bridgerton Series by Julia Quinn.
Digital sales rose 5% this quarter and accounted for 21% of consumer sales. The backlist represented 62% of revenues, up two percentage points from last year, underscoring the importance of this steady, high-margin revenue stream and a key factor behind the acquisition of HMH. HMH integration continued to progress well and is in the process of being integrated into a four-imprint structure within HarperCollins. We remain on track with our savings target of $20 million to be delivered within the first two years.
Overall, HMH contributed $50 million in revenue and $6 million in segment EBITDA this quarter. Turning to News Media. Revenues for the quarter were $576 million, up 18% versus the prior year, benefiting from the continued recovery in the advertising market, strong growth in circulation and subscription revenues, and a $25 million or 5% positive impact from foreign currency fluctuations. Within the segment, revenues at News UK and News Corp Australia increased 18% and 14%, respectively.
Wireless Group and the New York Post also showed strong top-line growth. Adjusted revenues for the segment increased 13% compared to the prior year. Circulation and subscription revenues rose 16%, which included a $13 million or 5% benefit from currency fluctuations, strong digital subscriber growth, incremental revenues from our platform agreements, and cover price increases.
Advertising revenues increased $39 million or 21% compared to the prior year, benefiting from the COVID-19 comparison with particular strength in digital across all businesses. On a reported basis, advertising revenues in Australia rose 5% or 2% in local currency despite the negative impact from the lockdowns, while News UK advertising revenues rose 36% or 28% in local currency. In the U.S., the trends remained strong with the New York Post posting 32% advertising revenue growth. Segment EBITDA of $34 million increased $56 million compared to the prior year, reflecting higher revenues, cost savings at News UK and News Corp Australia, and a modest positive contribution from the New York Post. Adjusted segment EBITDA increased $52 million to $30 million.
I would now like to talk about some themes for the upcoming quarter. Notwithstanding our strong results in the prior year, we remain encouraged by overall trends. Like many companies, we are closely monitoring supply chain issues, particularly in book publishing and our mastheads, as well as the impact of wage inflation on talent and retention.
At Digital Real Estate Services, Australian residential listings for October rose 16%, and we are encouraged that restrictions on physical inspections, notably in Melbourne, have eased. At Move, we continue to see strong yield improvement despite the near-term challenge on lead volume given the ongoing supply issues.
Like the first quarter, we expect to continue to reinvest in Move as we drive the core business and expand into relevant adjacencies. The rate of cost increase year-on-year in the first quarter was exacerbated by the COVID-19 savings initiatives in the prior year across headcount and marketing. We expect more moderate year-over-year cost increases for the balance of the year.
In Subscription Video Services, we remain pleased with the ongoing performance of Kayo and Binge and the efforts to improve broadcast ARPU and churn. We do expect seasonality in Kayo given the end of key winter codes but look forward to our summer schedule with The Ashes and the Cricket World Cup in the second quarter. Costs are expected to be higher in the second quarter, most notably for entertainment and sports rights, as well as some higher marketing to support the launch of Flash, the news streaming offering.
Overall, we continue to expect costs for the full year to be relatively stable in local currency. At Dow Jones, overall trends across the business remains strong with advertising and subscriptions growth continuing to perform well.
In Book Publishing, overall trends remain favorable despite lapping the benefits from COVID-19. We have a strong release lineup in the second quarter, including titles from Ree Drummond, Mitch Albom, and David Walliams.
At News Media, we continue to expect the segment to show profit improvement, partially benefiting from the recent content licensing revenues. We do expect some additional costs in the U.K. as we expand more into video content and leverage our key brands and mastheads. capex was modestly higher in the first quarter, and we continue to expect full-year capex to be up $100 million versus the prior year.
And finally, we remain focused on driving strong and positive free cash flow generation for the year with the first quarter free cash flow impacted by the timing of working capital payments.
With that, let me hand it over to the operator for Q&A.
