Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of News Corporation. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you to the 2017 Annual Meeting of the company and our aspirations for the future. The world today is defined and challenged by disruption in many fields for growth. We recognize the power of our own audiences and our assets and the importance of our own quality journalism.
We're developing new platforms to bring these assets to bear for the benefit of advertisers who need conducive environments for their advertising messages and reliable metrics with which to measure the effectiveness. I'm proud of what the people of News Corp have accomplished, with the impressive growth of our digital real estate businesses around the world, to the successes of our major demand than ever. We also bring to readers and consumers the books they love, coupons to save money and the support of our own startup for digital enterprises are imbuing expertise and insights throughout our company. In all these ways, News Corp is providing valuable benefits to people and organizations the world over. And in so doing, we continue on the path forward of profitable growth for our employees, for our clients, and particularly for you, our shareholders.
I'd now like to call on the podium to the podium, Robert Thompson, who will have a few words of his own about the state of our company. Robert is Chief Executive.
Thank you, Rupert. In fiscal year 2017, News Corp achieved tangible improvement in profitability powered by the fast growing digital real estate services segment, monetizing premium content and increasing operating efficiencies. Since the birth in 2013 of the New News Corp, which has built on the providence and principles of the original News Corporation, we've been assertively digital and have led the global awakening and reckoning on the value of content at a time of profound change in our markets and in society. That strategy continues to pay off as evidenced by our full year results and by the particularly strong performance in the Q1 of the current fiscal year in which every segment of the company saw an increase in profitability. During fiscal 2017, digital real estate continued to deliver on its potential as a strong source of growth and in its rapidly expanding contribution to total segment EBITDA.
At both REA and Move, we were pleased to see increased traffic, improved engagement and continuing revenue growth. The Wall Street Journal saw strong digital growth reaching nearly 1,300,000 digital subscribers, up almost 70% in the past 2 years. Our professional information business gained in strength with risk and compliance delivering a strong performance and healthy sales pipeline. At the New York Post, digital ad revenue has more than offset declines in print advertising for 2 straight fiscal years. On the other side of the globe, we saw particular success at The Australian, where readership burgeoned to nearly $500,000 a day, resulting in higher revenues.
Meanwhile, news.com.au is the number one news brand in Australia according to Nielsen. In the UK, The Times is the only national newspaper to show print circulation growth in the Q4 and continues to build digital subscribers. Digitally The Sun is fast closing the gap with the Mail in the UK board is proceeding at pace and the complementarity between the platforms is already clear. News America Marketing stabilized its business fiscal 2017, thanks to the impressive performance of its in store offerings. Point of purchase is even more important than point of sale.
Book publishing has flourished as HarperCollins showed its understanding of the American heartland, underscored by such best selling titles as The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines, J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, among others. At this moment, we have a category number 1 in the U. S.
With Re Drummond and the number 1 book overall in Australia with Jimmy Barnes and the same in the U. K. With David Walliams. Returning to Australia, FOX Sports Australia secured its market leading position through the extension of A League Soccer rights, made more valuable by Australia qualifying for the World Cup earlier today, and successfully launched the Fox League channel, instead of unlocking value for News Corp shareholders and align ownership and management for success at a time when scale is important and Australians are consuming premium content across a range of platforms. No review of fiscal 2017 would be complete without noting the global impact of our principled stand on intellectual property and the responsibility of the digital duopoly to recognize the provenance of premium content.
It is crucial that algorithms are not used to discriminate against quality journal free, an important first step in letting consumers find valuable journalism. We will closely monitor the effects of this significant change in coming months. In conclusion, reflecting on the year, we are more confident than ever in the power of content and connectivity, whether it be the news of the day, the match of the week, the book of the year, or the home of a lifetime. We are dedicated to informing and inspiring our readers, visitors and customers. We look forward to the coming year with much confidence in the prospects for our employees, our partners and our shareholders.
Thank you, Executive Chairman.
Thank you, Robert. I'll now call the meeting to order. Before proceeding to the business of the meeting, I'd like to introduce our directors and members of our management. Seated in the front row are Mr. James Murdock, Ms.
Kelly Ayotte, Ms. Natalie Bancroft and Ms. Anna Paolo Pessayo. And on stage with me are General Counsel, David Petosky Chief Executive, Robert Thompson Co Chairman, Lochner Murdoch Lead Director and Chairman of the Order Committee, Mr. Peter Barnes Chairman of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, Jose Maria Aznar Chairman of the Conversation Committee, Mr.
Masarai Sadighi Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Susan Panucci. Also present today, are Ms. Mimi Krishnan, Mr. Darrington Hobson of Ernst and Young LLP, the company's independent registered public accounting firm.
In accordance with the company's bylaws, I hereby appoint Mr. Jim Rowe from American Election Service LLC as the independent Inspector of Election for this annual meeting. This meeting is held pursuant to notice of annual meeting of stockholders and made available or mailed on or about October 3, 2017, each record holder of the company's common stock as of September 18, 2017. A list of holders of the company's Class A common stock entitled to vote at this meeting have been available for examination of the company's headquarters. The book and notice of this meeting are available here today.
It will be filed with the records of this meeting. The Inspector of Election has examined the proxies received and reports that holders of a majority of voting power of all of the Iceni shares of Class B common forum present at the meeting on behalf of the Board of Directors. So I'd like to express my appreciation to all stockholders who did return their proxies. It is now 4 minutes 8 minutes past 3 November 15, 2017. The polls are now open for voting.
You do not need to complete this meeting. If you wish to cast a ballot now, you should mark your ballot and a company representative will be available to collect it for tabulation. Those of you who requested a ballot, sir, that you could vote in person, provided with a ballot when you enter the meeting. If needed, ballots are also available at the desk where registration took place. You will have an opportunity to ask questions after all matters being submitted to stockholders now presented.
Please hold your questions until that time. We've been we have 3 items on the agenda. The first matter to be acted upon by the stockholders proposal won the election of directors. The Board has nominated the following to serve as directors: Lochlain Murdoch, Robert Thompson, Kelly Ayotte, Jose Maria Asner, Natalie Bancroft, Peter Barnes, Joel Klein, James Murdoch, Ana Paolo Espacoa, Masro Siddiqui and myself. These director nominees will each serve a 1 year term, expiring at the end of the 2018 Annual Meeting or until his or her successor is duly elected in public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2018.
Proposal 3 is an advisory vote to approve executive compensation. Preliminary report of the Inspector of Elections reflects that more than a majority of the electoral votes have been those cast have been voted for the election of each of the directors For the ratification of the selection of Ernst and Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending June 30, thank you. At this time, any stockholder who wishes to ask a question relating to any of the proposals regarding the business or operations of the company You should proceed to the microphone and present the blue or green admission ticket that you received when you registered today. Before asking your question, please state your name and affiliation. As noted in the rules and procedures for the conduct of the meeting that were provided to you when you register today, each stockholder is limited to 2 questions and conduct an orderly meeting.
Thank you.
Thanks very much for your presentation. My concern is these tech giants are destroying news media organizations. They're stealing from us and it sickens me. And I want to thank you, Mr. Murdoch and Mr.
Thompson for doing the first click free thing, which was the best thing that we've ever had for such a long time. But then we see things like the Daily Mail stealing office and they're the biggest website in the world and nothing happens. And can you give us some reassurance that we're going to get some progress on this because we're doing all the work, we're employing all the people and they take Advertising
is about all digital. It's been tremendously damaging to print. And what we're doing, of course, is trying to extend our subscription base. So now you can get the Wall Street Journal, any of these papers anywhere in the world, if you pay for it. So, so far, I think we have done pretty well in replacing the lost advertising revenue in the major papers, but it continues to be a big problem.
Unfortunately, the Daily Mail, we're doing a bit of over the sun and retaliation. Under the British law of fair use, they can get away with most of what they do. Any other questions? Yes. Thank you, Mr.
Menzies.
I had a question about the newspapers. Are you guys considering ever purchasing another newspaper? Are you guys anticipating looking and purchasing another newspaper in this anytime or any tie ups with other companies in any of your other businesses?
Not really. No. We're going to our hands pretty full making our existing papers viable. So I think, see, the big three success we have are the 3 big national papers, The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Australian. Other papers, there's still a lot of them are still very viable, but they're struggling.
And any joint ventures or tie ups with any other companies?
Nothing planned. No, I think nothing in the works. Thanks. Yes, sir.
Good afternoon. My name is Aaron Epstein. I'm a shareholder. I live in North Hollywood, California. 365 days ago, in this very room at this very time, I expressed my appreciation to the corporation for recognizing sexual harassment existence and immediately took steps to fire 1 of their senior executives.
Today, it seems that the subject is still sort of explosive because neither Republicans nor Democrats nor insurance companies nor newspapers nor politicians in Capitol Hill, regardless of party, have a monopoly that is sexual harassment. I don't mean to put anyone in this room, the company on the spot, but I do wish to ask you, are there any programs in News Corporation to more or less reduce sexual harassment either by counseling or conferences
or screening of people? Thank you. You want to take that one? Yes, please.
I'm the General Counsel. I'm also the Chief Compliance Officer. Thank you very much for your question. We have a series of programs along the lines that you're asking about. We have a firm policy on harassment and discrimination.
We have training throughout the company on that policy. We have reporting lines for anyone that is concerned that they've observed harassment or discrimination. We have an anonymous alert line that we publicize that people can report to if they've seen anything that is of concern to them. We haven't had to keep a very close eye on because of the development.
Thank you. I'm a Democrat. Appreciate this and I hope other institutions also follow.
Thank you very much.