Robert Thomson
Chief Executive at News
Thank you, Mike. Before we discuss results for the fourth quarter and full year of fiscal 2023, I would like to acknowledge that we've now completed a decade of the News Corp's existence. So this is surely an appropriate moment to reflect on our profound transformation, a transformation faithful to the company's founding principles.
Consider the then and the now, our revenue basis changed fundamentally and expanded dramatically. News and information services accounted for 72% of total revenues in fiscal 2014, which included News America Marketing and Dow Jones. By fiscal 2023, News Media was 23% and revitalized Dow Jones segment was 22%. Digital real estate comprised 5% of total revenues 10 years ago, and that has tripled to over 15% this past year, which includes the acquisition of Move, where revenues have more than doubled.
Subscription video services revenues increased from 6% of News Corp's total to 20%, bolstered by the consolidation and control of Foxtel, a business renewed, and Foxtel's imminent completion of a refinancing is expected to facilitate repayments of our outstanding shareholder loans beginning this fiscal year. Candidly, since our reincarnation, we have increasingly digital recurring revenues, higher margins, significantly more free cash flow, robust finances, and bright prospects for long-term growth and value creation for all our shareholders.
A few facts to demonstrate our digital scale today. Based on our June metrics, we had 79 million unique visitors at Dow Jones, a 159 million at the Sun, 74 million at Realtor.com, 21 million at Housing.com in India, and 145 million at the increasingly influential New York Post. And that digital momentum is surely gathering pace in the age of Generative AI. Along with this relentless focus on digitization, we have been intent on simplifying the company and heightening our cost consciousness. That cost discipline was clearly evident during a year that had a complicated plot line for books. While digital real estate was naturally inevitably affected by the interest rate hikes which appear to be plateauing in the U.S.
I would like to pay sincere tribute to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch and our Directors who have been steadfast in their strategic support, and all our employees and our loyal, insightful investors. Thanks to their collective committed efforts, News Corp achieved its three strongest fiscal years ever in the last three fiscal years 2021, 2022 and 2023.
In fact, fiscal '23, was our second most profitable year following fiscal '22, despite the difficult macro conditions in a couple of core segments, and our fourth quarter profitability was significantly higher than last year. There have certainly been fundamental changes in the media landscape. We have led the quest for appropriate compensation for content from the big digital platforms. And that quest began publicly in 2007 when I testified before the House of Lords about the challenges for publishers, and society in the internet age has entered a new, fascinating phase with the rise of Generative AI.
Clearly, negotiations are well underway with the relevant companies. And once again, News Corp hopes to set precedents that benefit creators, publishers and journalists around the globe. It is crucial for our societies that AI is replete with EI. That re-composition does not lead to the decomposition of creativity and integrity. We have been characteristically candid about the AI challenge to publishers and to intellectual property. It is essentially a triptych. In the first instance, our content is being harvested and scraped and otherwise ingested to train AI engines. Ingestion should not lead to indigestion.
Secondly, individual stories are being surfaced in specific searches. And thirdly, original content can be synthesized and presented as distinct when it is actually an extracting of our editorial essence. These super snippets distilling the effort and insight of great journalism are potentially designed so the reader will never visit a news site, thus fatally undermining journalism and damaging our societies. It is reassuring that the prescient executives at the largest digital companies can see these complexities and understand that our shared responsibilities extend far beyond the commercial, that Generative AI cannot be degenerative, that we are paving a platform for future generations and that we will be collectively held to account and not just by accountants.
From the philosophical to the functional, there is no doubt that AI articulations will affect most sections of most companies, whether it be customer service, subscription management, chatbots -- chit chatbots, text to audio and audio to video, experiences, efficiencies will be exponential. And we are absolutely clear in our company, there must be a confluence of the technological, the commercial and the cultural.
Last earnings, I mentioned the plight of Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, unjustly incarcerated by Russia for being a journalist seeking facts, seeking the truth. Both the Journal and the U.S government vehemently deny the allegations against him. Evan has now spent almost five months in prison. And we thank the many thoughtful people from all around the globe who have rallied to his cause and sought his release. And we thank those who are continuing to press determinedly for his emancipation, and providing support to his courageous family.
Turning now to our results for Q4 and fiscal year 2023. The aforementioned macroeconomic factors, that is inflation, supply chain complications, and vaulting interest rates along with volatile foreign exchange rates, patently presented challenges, some of which are more ephemeral than eternal. Nonetheless, we still saw significant progress across several segments. And thanks to our digital and international strategic focus, and acute cost consciousness, including the announced 5% headcount reduction, which we expect to yield more than $160 million in annual gross savings. Not only was this fiscal year the second best ever in terms of profits, we believe we are poised for greater growth in the years ahead.
As for the fourth quarter, revenues were over $2.43 billion, 9% lower year-over-year, though a majority of that decline is attributable to foreign exchange rates and an extra week last year, a 53rd week to balance out the multiyear calendar. Mathematically that one extra week accounts for almost half of the difference, and will obviously not be a factor in the current year.
Profitability in the quarter rose 8%, which is especially notable and that it comes after a 50% rise a year earlier. We are building on our positive performances even when the headwinds are blustery. Full year revenues were $9.879 billion, down 5% on our record prior year, and total segment EBITDA was over $1.4 billion, 15% lower, though still the second highest profits recorded for the new News Corp.
Dow Jones posted its highest profitability for both the quarter and the full year since we acquired the company, helped by impressive results in the professional information business. In fact, taking a step back, Dow Jones has doubled its profitability in the past four years. And for the first time, Dow Jones was the highest contributor of profits across all of News Corp in fiscal 2023 as we continue to develop the high margin B2B offerings. We are focused on Dow Jones as a pillar of News Corp's future growth with significant value appreciation for shareholders.
Dow Jones is nearing an important threshold with the lucrative B2B business expected to be the highest contributor to profitability in fiscal 2024 and a key driver for future margin expansion. Dow Jones has been bolstered over the past year by the acquisitions of OPIS and Chemical Market Analytics, and by continuing double-digit growth of risk and compliance. It is worth noting that risk and compliance revenues have risen six-fold over the past decade. We believe prospects remain decidedly bright, as the corporate imperative to minimize risk and maximize compliance grows in an ever more complex regulatory regime.
We believe the energy transition is an enormous global opportunity for OPIS and we will capitalize on it through new products. The establishment of compelling benchmarks and the generation of must have data, pricing and analytics, whether it be for fossil fuels, hydrogen, solar, lithium, cobalt, EVs, or carbon credits and offsets. The industry relies on OPIS for pricing transparency, which is critical to day-by-day decision making in a market that is undergoing massive transformation.
Dow Jones digital subscription growth accelerated in the second half, partly helped by bundling of our products to capitalize on our clients need for sophisticated market analysis and analytics. We want to channel Market Watch readers to WSJ then to Barron's and Investor's Business Daily, and from there to our specialists business products, that is a pathway to profits for the Company. Moreover, we are increasing our international digital focus for the Wall Street Journal, which currently has only 12% of subscriptions outside the U.S where there is much untapped potential.
Subscription video services reported adjusted revenue and profit growth, which excludes currency impact for the second straight year, and also for the fourth quarter, a remarkable turnaround from the recent past. We have long-term rights for the key Australian sports and the prime international sports for Australians and have created a model that streamers around the world are now trying to emulate.
Our streaming revenue growth again outpaced broadcast declines in both Q4 and the full year, with paid subscribers scaling at a double-digit rate to nearly 3.1 million. So we are particularly confident about Foxtel's future and our optionality given the imminent completion of our refinancing. We were asked frequently in the past how much more capital we would need to commit to Foxtel. But the question now is how much cash we will receive in coming years.
REA continued to be impacted by macroeconomic challenges in the Australian housing market, though we do see an easing of those challenges as the interest rate cycle peaks. Home prices have again started to increase and the auction completion rate crossed 70% in June, up from 55% in the prior year. REA's audience share against its nearest competitor continued to expand to north of 3.5 times in June, while visits to the site have expanded year-over-year for four consecutive months. REA did benefit from product price increases linked to improvements in the quality of those products. While India remains a source of ongoing potential given that Housing.com is already the market leader in a country on a positive economic trajectory with a rapidly expanding middle class.
In the U.S., we have new leadership at Move operator Realtor.com. Move experienced much success under David Doctorow and broadened its offerings with the acquisitions of OpCity, UpNest and Avail. We sincerely thank David for his positive contribution, which will resonate for years to come. Damian Eales brings vast digital experience and fiercely competitive spirit and much knowledge of how to leverage News Corp's powerful U.S platforms, whether that be the New York Post, or The Wall Street Journal, or Barron's to build the brand and expand market share.
Damian has just returned from Australia, where the Realtor team spent time at REA and the creative collaboration between the two companies will certainly intensify. Scale is crucial. And to put our scale in perspective based on June ComScore data, Realtors valuable and engaged audience is well over 2 times of that of Homes.com. Not only do we have scale in residential sales, we believe that we can continue to monetize that audience successfully.
For HarperCollins, and for other book publishers, Q4 and fiscal '23 generally was a challenging period with the post-COVID market resetting, logistical issues at Amazon and acute inflationary pressures. Some particular signs of success were joined against Magnolia Table Volume 3, and remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. And we have reason for optimism in the near future with books like Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, The Collector by Daniel Silva, and in the UK, T.V.: Big Adventures on the Small Screen by Peter Kay. In Q2, we are looking forward to the next Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond, and The Little Liar by Mitch Albom.
In News Media, advertising trends varied distinctly by geography with the U.K and the U.S performing best in the quarter. In the UK, the Sun had a successful year, with digital outpacing print ads again in the fourth quarter and for the full year. This strength was accentuated by the year-over-year growth of the Sun in the U.S., which reported a substantial surge in page views, and even higher yields than the successful U.K site.
The Times and Sunday Times also hit 565,000 digital subscriptions at the end of June and a 11% increase, underscoring the strength of their journalism and the global potential of the brand. News Corp Australia achieved almost 1.1 million digital subscriptions, an increase of 10%. News.com.au was the leading news website in Australia according to the Ipsos rankings, while the Australian was also in the top 10.
In the U.S., the New York Post reported another year of strong profits after decades, if not centuries of endless losses. As I mentioned, the paper's improved commercial fortunes have been accompanied by growing influence in New York, Washington, and beyond. As the paper's founder Alexander Hamilton sagely observed, those who stand for nothing fall for everything.
In a fiscal year affected by the reverberations of war, inflation, interest rate hikes, supply chain disruption and other macroeconomic challenges, and in a business inevitably impacted by foreign exchange fluctuations, News Corp is proud to report its second most profitable year since its reincarnation a decade ago. Our teams have been tested and have clearly passed that exacting test.
We ended the year on an upswing, with the company returning to profit growth in the quarter with inflation showing signs of abating, interest rates plateauing, and incipient signs of stability in the housing market we have sound reasons for optimism. All specious macro conditions will surely work to the benefit of a company that has become more digital, more global and with more recurring revenues in higher margin segments. We have navigated the sometimes perilous media waters adroitly and are particularly proud of our provenance, a provenance based on commitment, curiosity, and integrity.
We look forward with a sense of genuine of tangible excitement in the potential of our people and our businesses. And we remain utterly determined to deliver positive results for our customers, our employees, and most certainly, for our shareholders.
I will now pass you to our erudite CFO, Susan Panuccio, who will provide more insight into our financial coordinates.
