Susan Panuccio
Chief Financial Officer at News
Thanks, Robert. Before I discuss the quarterly results, I want to expand on Robert's opening comments. As we noted in our recent SEC filing, we have been engaged in discussions with CoStar about a potential sale of move. Any potential transaction would need to not only maximize shareholder value, but also strengthen realtor.com's competitive position. We do not plan on making additional comments on this call regarding the potential transaction, and we'll update the market when appropriate.
Turning to our fiscal 2023 2nd quarter results. The macro environment weighed heavily on the financial results and conditions worsened as the quarter progressed, most notably in December. Second quarter total revenues were over $2.5 billion, down 7% year-over-year, which included a $171 million or 6% negative impact from foreign currency headwinds. We -- excluding the impact of foreign currency fluctuations, acquisitions and divestitures, second quarter adjusted revenues fell 3% compared to the prior year. The revenue decline was primarily driven by the Book Publishing and Digital Real Estate Services segment. On a constant currency basis, we saw continued growth in circulation and subscription revenues, which was partially offset by a modest decline in advertising revenues.
Total segment EBITDA was $409 million, 30% lower compared to the prior year's record profits. The results included $6 million of onetime costs incurred by the special committee and the company regarding the proposal from the Murdoch Family Trust, which has now been withdrawn and the special committee has been dissolved. Adjusted total segment EBITDA declined 28% versus the prior year period. For the quarter, we reported earnings per share of $0.12 compared to $0.40 in the prior year due to lower total segment EBITDA and higher losses from equity affiliates. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.14 in the quarter compared to $0.44 in the prior year.
Moving on to the results for the individual reporting segments, starting with Digital Real Estate Services. Segment revenues were $386 million, down 15% compared to the prior year, impacted by the ongoing macroeconomic pressures on both the Australian and U.S. housing markets. The results include a negative impact of $26 million or 5% from foreign currency fluctuations. On an adjusted basis, segment revenues decreased 10%. Segment EBITDA declined 28% to $128 million, impacted by lower revenues and a negative impact related to currency headwinds, partially offset by lower broker commissions REA adjusted segment EBITDA declined 22%.
REA revenues were $240 million, down 16% on a reported basis, including a 9% negative impact from foreign exchange. Revenues were impacted by the weakness in financial services due to fewer settlements amid rising interest rates and a decline in residential revenues driven by lower new buy listings. In the quarter, Australia national residential buy listings were down 21% with Sydney and Melbourne down 34% and 31%, respectively. Those declines were partially offset by price increases in the residential and commercial businesses, higher contribution from Premier Plus and favorable depth penetration as well as continued momentum at REA India, which is scaling in both traffic and revenues.
Please refer to REA's earnings release and their conference call following this call for more details. At Move, revenues were $146 million, down 14% compared to the prior year, with real estate revenues down 17% driven by lower lead and transaction volumes, reflective of the broader housing market challenges, unique lead volumes fell 37%, while Realtor's average monthly unique users were $66 million in the second quarter based on internal metrics.
Turning to the Subscription Video Services segment. Revenues for the quarter were $462 million, down 7% compared to the prior year on a reported basis due to foreign currency headwinds. On a constant currency basis, revenues rose 3% versus the prior year, the fourth consecutive quarter of growth in constant currency, underscoring the improved stability of the business. Streaming revenues accounted for 26% of circulation and subscription revenues compared to 19% in the prior year and again, more than offset broadcast revenue declines, benefiting from both volume growth and higher pricing at Kayo and BINGE, we also benefited this quarter from growth in commercial revenues as the prior year results were impacted by the pandemic-related lockdown.
Total closing paid subscribers across the Foxtel Group reached over $4.3 million at quarter end, up 10% year-over-year. Total paid streaming subscribers were approximately $2.7 million, increasing 25% versus the prior year and represented 62% of Foxtel's total paid subscriber base. Kayo paying subscribers reached over $1.1 million, up 11% year-over-year, but declined sequentially from the first quarter as it exhibited typical seasonal patterns with the end of the AFL and NRL seasons in September. Given its enhanced and expanded content offerings, Foxtel has rolled out a price rise to its Kayo customers effective this month on its basic to stream tier.
BINGE paying subscribers grew a robust 48% year-over-year to almost 1.4 million subscribers, benefiting from a strong release slate, which included the second season of white Lotus and carryover demand from House of the Dragon. As Robert mentioned, we are looking forward to the introduction of advertising within BINGE later this fiscal year and have begun selling launch packages.
Foxtel ended the quarter with 1.4 million residential broadcast subscribers, down 10% year-over-year. Broadcast churn improved sequentially and year-over-year to 12.9% despite the migration of cable subscribers to streaming or satellite. At quarter end, less than 80,000 subscribers remained on cable as Foxtel continues to migrate subscribers from cable by fiscal year-end. Broadcast ARPU rose 2% to AUD83. Segment EBITDA in the quarter of $90 million was 5% higher versus the prior year, which reflects an 11% negative impact from foreign exchange. Adjusted segment EBITDA increased 16% despite higher sports and entertainment costs.
Moving on to Dow Jones. Dow Jones posted a strong top line performance in the second quarter with revenues of $563 million, up 11% compared to the prior year. Digital revenues accounted for 76% of total revenues this quarter, up 4 percentage points from last year. On an adjusted basis, revenues rose 1%, impacted by a weaker advertising marketplace compared to the prior year. Circulation revenues grew 3%, driven by strong year-over-year volume gains, including bundled offerings with total Dow Jones digital-only subscriptions up approximately 10% to over $4.1 million.
We are particularly pleased with the performance of our professional information business, which saw revenue growth accelerate from the prior quarter to 45%. PIP revenues accounted for 33% of segment revenues. The integration of OPIS and CMA are progressing in line with our expectations as the businesses benefit from the strong demand across numerous industries, including metals, carbon plastics, sustainability, biofuels and renewables, while yields continue to rise and retention remains strong.
Risk and Compliance revenue growth accelerated from the prior quarter, up 13% despite a 7 percentage point negative impact from foreign currency. We saw improved growth in all regions, underpinned by a healthy new business pipeline most notably in EMEA, led by demand for screening and monitoring and financial crime search products. Retention remains strong at above 90%. Advertising revenues declined 7% to $131 million, with digital advertising revenues down 3% in the quarter and print down 13%, which was mostly due to weakness in December, with October and November reasonably stable versus the prior year.
Digital advertising accounted for 59% of total advertising revenues, which improved 3 percentage points from last year. The technology and financial categories, which are typically our 2 largest advertising categories were both impacted by the macro conditions. We saw digital advertising growth at the wallstreetjournal.com, underscoring its premium audience. However, this was more than offset by the declines at MarketWatch, which face more headwinds as its audience and advertising demand tend to be more stock market-sensitive.
Dow Jones segment EBITDA for the quarter declined 3% to $139 million, reflecting a higher spending rate compared to both the prior year and first quarter, driven by costs related to the OPIS and CMA acquisitions, higher compensation costs and phasing of marketing expenses. Adjusted segment EBITDA for the quarter was down 16%. We expect cost growth to moderate in the second half, and I will provide more detail on this later in my commentary about the outlook for the upcoming quarter.
At Book Publishing, while we saw some impacts from the logistic constraints at Amazon, the results were mostly hampered by significant softness in consumer demand across the industry, notably in North America.
On the cost side, lower cost due to volume declines were partially offset by ongoing supply chain inventory and inflationary pressures, further contracting margins. For the quarter, revenues declined 14% to $531 million and segment EBITDA declined 52% to $51 million. The backlist represented 57% of revenues, up slightly from last year, partly driven by weaker frontlist performance with the mix being more weighted towards physical copies rather than digital, which had an adverse impact on margins. Digital sales declined 7% this quarter and accounted for 19% of consumer sales.
On an adjusted basis, revenues fell 11%, and segment EBITDA declined 51%. To mitigate the recent challenges, HarperCollins has already implemented price increases and has been actively reviewing its cost structure, including the recently announced 5% company-wide headcount reduction.
Turning to News Media. Revenues were $579 million, down 9%, which included a $65 million or 10% negative impact on revenues from foreign currency. Adjusted revenues rose 1%. Circulation and subscription revenues declined 7%, but were up 4% in constant currency. Growth on a constant currency basis was driven by cover price increases in the U.K. and Australia and double-digit subscriber growth across News Australia and
The Times and The Sunday Times. We saw advertising conditions worsened from the prior quarter, albeit with variance across our markets. Advertising revenues were down 13%, but down 3% in constant currency.
Advertising at News U.K. was down modestly in constant currency as lower print advertising revenues were partially offset by strong growth in digital advertising at -- the Sun, which has seen very strong momentum in both page views and yields from its U.S. site. Advertising trends were notably weaker in Australia and at the New York Post. During the quarter, we saw that December was the weakest month for both the U.K. and the New York Post, while in Australia, November was the most challenging with December showing modest improvements month-over-month.
Segment EBITDA of $59 million declined 47%, which was driven by approximately $22 million of higher costs related to the Talk TV initiative in the U.K. and other digital investments, notably in Australia as well as nearly $21 million negative impact from higher newsprint pricing.
New York Post remained a positive contributor to segment EBITDA. Adjusted segment EBITDA fell 43%. Free cash flow for the 6 months ending December 31 was lower than the prior year due to lower total segment EBITDA as well as the timing of working capital payments, which included the payment for sports rights in the second quarter. We remain focused on driving strong and positive free cash flow generation for the year.
Turning to the outlook. We continue to expect a higher cost due to supply chain and inflationary pressures, advertising conditions remain challenging and visibility is limited. We expect ongoing foreign exchange headwinds, albeit at a more modest impact given recent spot rates. We remain committed to reducing costs where we can, driven by headcount reductions across our business units, prioritized marketing spending and lower discretionary costs, while balancing investment spend. Looking at each of our segments. Our digital real estate services, Australian residential new buy listings for January declined 9%. Please refer to REA for a more specific outlook commentary.
At Move, we expect lead volumes to remain challenged in the near term, due to macro conditions, albeit moderating mortgage rates have led to early signs of improving trends in the housing market. In Subscription Video Services, we remain pleased with the performance of the streaming products and the ongoing focus on broadcast ARPU and churn as we continue to migrate customers off cable. We are very encouraged by the year-to-date performance and continue to expect the Foxtel Group's profitability in local currency for the full year to be relatively stable.
Profitability will be skewed to the fourth quarter as we expect third quarter cost to be higher in local currency compared to the prior year given the contractual escalators and expanded content from the AFL and NRL.
At Dow Jones, we remain focused on the integration of OPIS and CMA. January advertising trends were similar to December with revenues down versus the prior year, and we expect trends to remain challenged, especially given the ongoing pressures within the technology category, noting that visibility is limited as usual. As I mentioned earlier, we expect the rate of investment spending growth in the second half to be more modest than the first half rate, which should aid profitability.
In Book Publishing, we are optimistic about our new release, which should help with the performance in the second half, although near-term industry trading conditions have remained challenged. At News Media, similar to the second quarter, we expect ongoing inflationary cost pressures, especially on newsprint prices, which will be balanced by targeted cost initiatives. We will continue to see incremental costs in relation to product investments, albeit at a lower rate than the second quarter.
And finally, in relation to the potential sale of Move and the special committee's work on the now withdrawn proposal, we expect to see some additional onetime transaction costs in the third quarter.
With that, let me hand it over to the operator for Q&A.
