Good day, and welcome to News Corporation 4th Quarter Fiscal Year 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Media is invited in a listen only basis. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Michael Florin, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations.
Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to News Corp's fiscal 4th quarter 20 15 earnings call. We issued our earnings press release about an hour ago and now posted on our website at newscorp.com. On the call today are Robert Thompson, Chief Executive and Bedi Singh, Chief Financial Officer. We will open with some prepared remarks, and then we'll be happy to take questions from the investment community.
This call may include certain forward looking information with respect to News Corp's business and strategy. Actual results could differ materially from what is said. News Corporation's Form 10 ks for the 12 months ended June 30, 2015 identifies risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ and these statements are qualified by the cautionary statements contained in such filings. Additionally, this call will include certain non GAAP financial measurements. The definition of and a reconciliation of such measures can be found in our earnings release and our 10 ks filing.
Finally, please note that certain financial measures used on this call such as segment EBITDA, adjusted segment EBITDA and adjusted EPS are expressed on a non GAAP basis. The GAAP to non GAAP reconciliation of these non GAAP measures is included in our earnings release. With that, I'll pass over to Robert Thompson for some opening comments.
Thank you, Mike, and welcome to you all from Sydney. We have completed our 1st 2 years as the new news call with a strong finish in the Q4 of fiscal 2015. Without being particularly pan Glossian, I am confident in asserting that the company is financially stronger and strategically better positioned than when we started our journey. We have aggressively shifted to digital across our businesses through smart and disciplined investments that also expanded our reach globally. Our acquisition of realtor.com signaled a major expansion of our expertise in digital real estate, making us a global leader in a field that we believe has tremendous growth potential in the years ahead.
We have reduced operating costs where appropriate and will continue to be vigilant in that area. We returned capital with a declaration of a dividend and we have been executing on our repurchase program. And we have rigorously reviewed our asset portfolio. You will see from today's press release that we are very advanced in a strategic review of Amplify, our digital education business. We will update you on our progress, but our goal is to drive value per share for News Corp shareholders but our
goal is to drive
value per share for Newscorp shareholders and to ensure our portfolio is a powerful platform for future growth. First, let me address the financials on which Fady will elaborate in a few moments. For the year, revenues were $8,600,000,000 a1% increase, while total segment EBITDA was $852,000,000 up 11% on the prior year. These results come despite global and financial instability. Quite obviously, currency headwinds buffeted the business and in particular, our revenues and EBITDA were affected by 4% and 6% respectively.
Even though our company was not unique in being impacted by these macro trends, we were able to deliver free cash flow available to News Corp of $368,000,000 and we expect healthy free cash flow going forward. We were optimistic that we would grow segment EBITDA in the 4th quarter and in fact reported EBITDA rose by 50% versus the prior year and over 60% on an adjusted basis. Let me be more specific about some key things. The reality is that the media landscape is undergoing profound change. The traditional ways of creating and distributing news and information are changing.
We are not treading water in the roiling sea of change. We are increasingly determined to gather high quality data to ensure that our users have the best possible experience, while our advertisers can be confident that our readers have a connection to our content that is particularly strong in its intensity and its affinity, both of which are distinctive in an age of digital promiscuity and digital disloyalty. We are not simply a collection of unique powerful assets. We are a company with complementary platforms. And what makes our businesses so complementary is how much they have in common, namely the uncommon power of their news and content and their data, data about customers, businesses and markets that is global in scale and precise in its targeting.
In the coming year, we will be enhancing our ability to deliver customized offerings to our readers, clients and advertisers. Some existing examples indicate the future ahead. Realtor.com has experienced industry leading growth in part because of the quality of our real estate news analysis, which are an important service to anyone in the U. S. Contemplating the purchase or the sale of a property.
The moment of moving is a particularly opportune time to influence purchasing decisions. News America marketing is benefiting from the precise demographic data that we are able to gather from realtor.com. Our clients know that we are able to identify when families are moving and when they'll need a new
television, cable contracts or a car for the
garage. Checkout 51, the digital coupon company we acquired last month provides precious information about broad consumer habits, but also about specific purchases. While social media companies attempt to identify the intention of shoppers, we have detailed data about actual actions. We will get purchase from purchases. News Australia launched just last week NewsConnect powered by Quantium, which will combine News Corp Australia's scale touching 7,200,000 people day with a huge database of transaction information, while for customized audiences based on specific buying behavior.
On our acquisition strategy, during the 1st 2 years, we've had a clear plan to extend our expertise, build and create powerful platforms for our content and our clients. Our first acquisition as the new news was Storyform, the world's first social media news agency. Since that time, this online video pioneer has partnered with Facebook, Vice, YouTube and many others to authenticate and to distribute compelling video content that has drawn 100 of millions of views. We expect to see increased integration of Storyful across our mastheads as we build out and distribute native content solutions. It is also a powerful marketing tool for brands and businesses.
In early fiscal 2015, we acquired Harlequin, which became part of 1 of the world's preeminent publishing houses, HarperCollins. Harlequin's global expertise has helped Harper Collins extend its international footprint and provides a platform for growth in many lands and many languages. The virtue of that capability became clear when we won the global Spanish rights for Harper Lee's 2nd novel, Go Set A Watchman, whose publication in the U. S. Was indubitably the book event of the year.
We completed the acquisition of Move, which operates realtor.com. We had forecast that the mastheads of News Corp would be powerful platforms in driving digital traffic for realtor.com and that has patently been the case. The site rose from being 3rd placed to a clear second and became the fastest growing in the sector. We expect that realtor.com will become an increasingly important platform and profit center for News Corp. To give you a sense of the scale of the site, we had over 48,000,000 monthly unique visitors in July, each of whom viewed an average of 25 pages.
As we promised at the time of the acquisition, the digital networks of News Corp helped turbocharge traffic, which is gaining market share and is positioned to be a core pillar of News Corp's future profitability. In fact, we expect to see positive EBITDA this year and further growth in coming years. We ended July with traffic up 43% versus the prior year and more than 70% since our acquisition in November 2014. News Corp has also invested thoughtfully in other businesses to extend our reach. The REA Group in which we have a 61.6% stake bought and increased its own stake in the Southeast Asian online property business, I Property.
We made moves in India acquiring a stake in Alara Technologies, which owns proptiger.com, a leading digital real estate marketing platform. We also acquired VC Circle, a top digital data a top digital data information, training and conferences network and bigdecisions.com, which helps Indian consumers make informed financial decisions. These are companies that complement each other and our global businesses. Some key business highlights. At Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal is the premier player in financial news.
Today, we have over 700,000 digital only subscribers and we obviously expect that number to rise. Digital is 1 third of our paid subscriber base at present. We acknowledge that the journal is underpriced and we've taken steps to address that through a combination of new rates and flexible packaging. This quarter circulation revenues at the journal grew 7%, an impressive rate of growth in this marketplace. Our ad revenues at the journal showed strong sequential improvement in Q4 and early signs for the Q1 of the current year are particularly promising.
This trend highlights the increasing importance of a marquee brand and a desirable demographic in a cluttered, confusing and sometimes confounding advertising market. We launched WSJ Plus this year, The Wall Street Journal's customer loyalty program and has shown traction with nearly 2 100,000 active members thus improving engagement and lowering churn. We've incorporated similar programs across our mastheads in Australia and the UK. We announced new global print edition of the journal to grow our audience and advertising revenues internationally as we focus on key financial hubs and using digital to extend our reach more efficiently in smaller markets. Our team at Dow Jones is continuing to innovate, Mansion Global, a new website which leverages our unique customer base to create a premier international and digital luxury real estate platform in English, Chinese and Spanish.
We saw improvement in the professional information business, including favorable trends in risk and compliance, where growth has been particularly strong as financial institutions and other companies adapt to tougher regulatory regimes and we expect continued stability in fiscal 20 16. We need to more aggressively push video and mobile products and expand the engagement with consumers throughout the day. We're empowering video journalists with better tools and integrating the video team with the rest of the newsroom. We are now implementing the new systems to better and more effectively monetize this valuable inventory. HarperCollins Publishers has successfully integrated its acquisition of integrated its acquisition of Harlequin, reducing costs, consolidating and opening international offices and launching more than a dozen authors in multiple languages and countries.
The company was able to take advantage of the unexpected surge in interest in American Sniper after the release of the eponymous film as well as the ongoing popularity of the Divergent trilogy. Capping Capping the fiscal year was the announcement of Go Setter Watchmen, which sold a record number of copies in its 1st week and also boosted sales of the legendary Tickler Mockingbird. In Australia, Box Sports has successfully monetized its 1st class roster of sports rides, is gaining advertising market share and benefiting from Foxtel's new pricing and packaging strategy to drive subscriber growth. At Foxtel, we saw very strong improvement in cable satellite subscribers and we also expect the rollout of Triple Play and improved content offerings at Presto, its subscription video on demand product to be accretive to growth. Foxtel also announced plans to acquire approximately 15% stake in 10 network holdings subject to regulatory approval.
REA continued robust growth in revenue and EBITDA despite some earlier softness in listing volume. It is worth noting that early prospects of fiscal 2016 are encouraging. Growth again accelerated in the 4th quarter and we're confident in the long term trajectory as REA extends its footprint, expands into adjacencies and drives premium penetration. At News Australia, of particular note was the improved EBITDA in local currency this year, thanks in part to measured increases in both cover price and subscription rates, innovative digital offerings and the efforts by the sales team to stabilize advertising trends. Our leadership team in Australia is continuing to develop our mastheads, which are powerful platforms for advertisers in print and in digital.
They have launched new apps for our papers around the country and continue the development of news.com.au, which is the country's leading news website. News Corp Australia also launched Sync, its own programmatic ad exchange, which we believe will have the most scale with the highest quality content in the marketplace. And we will continue to invest in products that play for that commercial opportunity. For example, The Australian launched Australian Business Review and a premium benefits program for readers, the Australian Plus. In the UK, the Times gained market share and revenues through innovative products and new pricing.
1 of the world's oldest existing newspapers digital age, thanks to high quality journalism and constant innovation. Advertising remains challenging for a number of our businesses, particularly at The Sun in the UK. We are clearly taking steps to address this issue, including with new products to encourage engagement and to help drive higher traffic. We plan a deeper role for our programmatic ad exchange and increased monetization of video and mobile, which we believe drivers of future growth. As is the case for all companies with extensive global operations, there has been a significant impact from currency fluctuations and there will no doubt be more volatility in the macroeconomic environment in the current year.
Our clear aim currencies aside is to pursue our core digital and global strategy, develop our businesses and prudently cut costs to ensure that there is a long term and meaningful return for our investors. In conclusion, News Corp has clearly evolved from our launch 2 years ago. We are the custodians of a proud tradition and we are also fashioning a profitable future in an era of profound change. We have had a strategy that is consistent with our message to investors at the time of our separation. We are more digital and more global and we have begun to execute on our buyback program and announced a semi annual cash dividend of $0.10 a share in the Q1 of fiscal 2016 for payment in the quarter.
The decision by the Board to pay a dividend is a sign of confidence in the state of our business and faith in our prospects for the future. We plan to continue our strategy of balancing capital returns with prudent reinvestment so that we realize our goal of long term growth and value creation. With stable revenues, EBITDA growth and robust free cash flow in fiscal 2015, we have real reason to be optimistic about the year ahead, building on our success for the benefit of all our customers, employees and shareholders. As always, we thank you for your support as we continue this journey together. Now we turn to Badi for the details of our 4th quarter earnings and some insights into fiscal 2016.
Thank you.
Thank you, Robert. News Corp. Made clearly very strong progress in our 2nd full year. We further digitized our asset portfolio, streamlined costs and began to return capital to shareholders. We finished the quarter with strong EBITDA growth and we believe we are well positioned to build on that success in the year ahead.
Just some key financial highlights of the year and these included the seamless integration of the Move and Honequin acquisitions, moderating EBITDA declines at our News and Information Services segment, including stabilization at the Dow Jones Professional Information business and growing consumer circulation revenues, further penetration of our masthead digital subscriptions and improved pricing continued advertising market share gains at Fox Sports Australia successful subscriber growth at Foxtel due to its repricing and repackaging strategy and product offering expansion and initiating a capital return program including the declaration of a semiannual cash dividend and the commencement of share repurchases. Turning to the financial results. For the full year, we reported revenues of $8,600,000,000 a 1% increase versus the prior year. Excluding the impact of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign currency fluctuations, adjusted revenues were 1% lower than the prior year. We reported full year total segment EBITDA of $852,000,000 which was an 11% increase versus the prior year.
Reported results included costs related to the U. K. Lease cycle matters, net of indemnification, which were $50,000,000 for the year. Excluding all acquisitions and divestitures, costs related to these U. K.
Newspaper matters and foreign exchange fluctuations, adjusted total segment EBITDA was up 15% versus the prior year. As Robert mentioned, we were impacted by currency headwinds throughout the year, primarily due to the weaker Australian dollar. Foreign currency fluctuations negatively impacted full year reported revenues by $319,000,000 or 4% and total reported segment EBITDA by $49,000,000 or 6%. Fiscal 2015 reported EPS were a loss of $0.26 which includes an impairment charge at Amplify in fiscal 2015 and restructuring costs. Excluding the impact of these and other items, our adjusted EPS was $0.47 compared to $0.46 last year.
And free cash flow available to News Corp was $368,000,000 modestly higher than the prior year. Turning to the Q4. The company reported total revenues of $2,140,000,000 a 2% decrease versus the prior versus the prior year period and our adjusted revenues declined by 1% similar to the full year rate. Fiscal 4th quarter total segment EBITDA was $191,000,000 a 50 percent increase versus the prior year period. Reported results include $8,000,000 related to the U.
K. Newspaper matters net of the Our adjusted total segment EBITDA this quarter grew by 62%. Adjusted EPS was $0.07 compared to $0.01 in the prior year. Currency headwinds negatively impacted 4th quarter reported revenues by $168,000,000 or 8% and total reported segment EBITDA by $23,000,000 or 19%. With that as a brief overview, let's look at our 4th quarter performance for our key segments.
In News and Information Services, revenues for the quarter declined $154,000,000 or 10% versus the prior year period. More than 70% of the revenue decline was related to foreign currency. Adjusted segment revenues declined 2%, an improvement from the prior quarter rate. Within segment revenues, advertising, which was 55% of segment revenues this quarter declined around 13% or 7% in local currency, a similar rate to both the quarter and the full year. At The Wall Street Journal, advertising was slightly higher versus the prior year quarter, a notable sequential improvement as we had expected.
We saw improvement in technology, finance and luxury goods categories. At News Corp Australia, advertising revenues for the quarter declined 23%, but only 8% in local currency as the marketplace is a bit weaker than the prior two quarters. And we saw weakness in several categories including retail, national and auto this quarter. At News U. K, advertising revenues remained soft this quarter relatively similar to last quarter the year.
We saw year over year declines across most segments, particularly retail, IT and Telecom, utilities and automotive. The sun remains a challenge and we're continuing to look at additional ways to better monetize our digital offerings and broaden our advertiser base. At News America Marketing, revenue declined 9% versus the prior year quarter due to continued weakness in freestanding inserts, partially offset by growth in in store advertising. Total circulation and subscription revenues, which accounted for 38% of segment revenues this quarter declined 5%, but was up 2% in local currency. Dow Jones Professional Information business had a negative $7,000,000 impact to revenues this quarter, but was down only $3,000,000 excluding foreign currency impact, a significant improvement from the prior quarter.
We continue to see growth in consumer circulation revenues, led again by The Wall Street Journal, which grew 7% this quarter, thanks to new pricing and packages. Segment EBITDA increased $38,000,000 in the quarter or 29% as compared to the prior year period and adjusted segment EBITDA was up 34%. We benefited this quarter from a combination of increased operating efficiencies at Dow Jones and at News America Marketing combined with higher prior year costs at News U. K, which had included severance and the World Cup marketing. One item to note in the U.
K. Results, the quarter included an $11,000,000 one time charge related to termination of a distribution contract as part of our ongoing cost reduction initiatives. Turning to the Book Publishing segment. Revenues increased 8% and segment EBITDA was flat compared to the prior year. Adjusted revenues fell 9% versus the prior year and adjusted segment EBITDA fell 18%, primarily due to difficult year ago comparisons, which had higher divergent sales.
Divergent sales. Total digital revenues for the quarter were 23% of consumer revenues, down from 24% in the prior year, again primarily due to the divergent year ago comparison, which impacted total revenues by almost $23,000,000 this quarter. In Digital Real Estate Services, total segment revenues increased $76,000,000 or 67% and EBITDA declined $17,000,000 or 27% compared to the prior year's period due to foreign currency and the inclusion of move results. Excluding foreign currency fluctuations, REA's adjusted revenue and adjusted EBITDA grew 15% and 18% respectively, an improvement from the prior quarter driven by higher depth penetration even though listing volumes for the market remained below prior year levels. That said listing volume has improved in June July.
Reported segment results include $81,000,000 in revenues and an EBITDA loss of $15,000,000 from move, which includes 5 $1,000,000 of stock based compensation and $7,000,000 in legal fees for litigation against Zillow. For the full year, excluding stock based comp and legal fees, Move was EBITDA net positive. On a standalone basis, Move's revenue would have grown 32% versus the prior year quarter, which is an acceleration from the March quarter. The improvement was led by the co blog product and non listing media revenues, benefiting from the successful integration into the Dow Jones program added exchange and higher audience levels. In Cable Network Programming, revenue decreased by 3 $1,000,000 or 2% compared to the prior year quarter.
Subscription revenues fell 3%, benefiting from higher affiliate fees and increased subscribers, which was more than offset by foreign exchange headwinds. Advertising revenues were flat, but up strongly in local currency. Segment EBITDA in the quarter grew 16% despite higher costs and negative impact from foreign currency fluctuations. Excluding the impact of foreign currency fluctuations, adjusted revenues grew by 15% and adjusted EBITDA by 37%. Digital Education, revenues rose compared with the prior year quarter due in part to higher early grade print hybrid sales and segment EBITDA improved due to development cost reductions.
As Robert mentioned, we are in the advanced stages of reviewing strategic alternatives for Amplify. The recent selling season for the new school year for our digital TMA curriculum overall has been disappointing and the marketplace for digital curriculum has been much slower to develop than we initially expected. Additionally, we are no longer Additionally, we are no longer accepting new tablet customers and will only be providing service and support to existing customers. We have reduced our long range outlook at Amplify, resulting in a non cash impairment charge of $371,000,000 this quarter. And we will keep you updated on further developments.
With respect to earnings from affiliates, FOX10 ended the quarter with over 2,800,000 protein subscribers, up 9% versus the prior year, driven by subscribers. Share improved to 9.9% from 12% in the prior year quarter. Foxtel revenues for the quarter in local currency were up 2% versus the prior year and EBITDA declined 16%, due to higher sports programming costs related to the acquisition of V eight Supercars and Formula 1 rights, higher subscriber fees paid to FOX Sports Australia combined with higher support costs related to the new pricing and packaging strategy and Triple Play. Subscriber growth remains strong with total subscribers around 230,000 year over year and growth of 94,000 in Q4. We will be including full Foxtel financials in our 10 ks, which we expect to file shortly.
Overall, while Sysore is a year of reinvestment, we expect Foxtel to return to EBITDA growth in fiscal 2016 in local currency. Turning to free cash flow. Free cash flow available to News Corporation in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2015 was $368,000,000 compared to $365,000,000 in the prior year. It's worth noting that foreign currency had approximately a $30,000,000 negative impact to our available free cash flow in fiscal 2015. Turning now to a few themes for fiscal 2016.
At News and Information Services, advertising remains volatile and visibility is limited. Ad spending in the U. S. Is up versus the prior year, while trends in Australia and the U. K.
Remain soft. We hope to see more stability in the segment, driven by prior year cost initiatives, increased penetration of digital subscribers and continued stabilization at the Dow Jones Professional Information Business. At Book Publishing, we're very excited about our pipeline for fiscal 2016, which was highlighted by the release in July of Harper Lee's low set of Watchmen, including as Robert noted the Spanish rights for Watchmen. However, unlike Divergent, Watchmen will skew heavily towards physical books and given the higher marketing costs and author advance, it will result in more modest profitability. Regarding Harlequin, we remain on track with our cost synergy targets of $30,000,000 and expect the bulk of the savings to be realized in fiscal 2016.
At move, we are very pleased with the progress at realtor.com. While there's still work to be done and we expect to reinvest in marketing and in product development in fiscal 2016 to further drive market share, we expect move to be modestly accretive to reported segment EBITDA in fiscal 2016 and expect to further ramp in fiscal 2017, driven by strong audience gains, lead volumes and improved ad inventory monetization. REA Group, as mentioned on the earnings call yesterday, listing volume has improved in June and we expect another year of solid growth. At Cable Networks, we expect continued solid performance in local currency driven by subscriber revenue growth. In the first half of fiscal 2016, programming costs are expected to be higher though due to the inclusion of the Rugby World Cup in September October.
And for the Q1 of fiscal 2016, given the current spot rate for the Australian dollar, we would expect currency headwinds relatively similar to Q4 of fiscal 2015. Last year, the Australian dollar rate was 0 point 93 dollars for the 1st quarter, roughly $0.20 higher than the current rate. To help frame the currency impact, our 10 ks will be disclosing that the impact of a $0.01 change in the U. S. Dollar versus the Australian dollar impacted fiscal 2015 annual revenues by approximately $31,000,000 and total segment EBITDA by approximately 6,000,000 dollars CapEx for fiscal 2015 was approximately $380,000,000 which was in line with our expectations and we expect CapEx to be at a reduced level for fiscal 2016.
And lastly on capital returns. In August 2015, the company declared a semi annual cash dividend of $0.10 per share for Class A common stock and Class B common stock. This dividend is payable on October 21, 2015 with a record date for determining dividend entitlements of September 16, 2015. To date, we've repurchased about 3,000,000 shares for $45,000,000 and has approximately $455,000,000 remaining under our share purchase authorization. And we continue to view share repurchases as opportunistic.
So in summary, fiscal 2015 was a very busy year for News Corp as we balanced ongoing operational efficiencies with prudent investments and strategic acquisitions to expand our global footprint and digital offerings. We initiated a capital return program and we are in the advanced stages of reviewing our strategic alternatives at Amplify. Overall, we entered the year with stable revenues, EBITDA growth and significant free cash flow and we expect that to continue next year. With that, let me turn back to the operator for Q and A.
Thank you. And the first question comes from John Jannidis with Jefferies.
Hi. Thank you. Can you give us
a little more color on Amplify? I assume to some extent you were reviewing Amplify's Access products at the same time as the rest of the business. So can you help us think about a timeline? How much is the savings from Access? And are you further scaling back investment in the remaining digital business for 2016?
Thank you.
John, it's Robert here. First of all, I'd like to say that the Amplify team has obviously done much innovative work and it is a very able team. But you can take from our messaging today that we are in the final phase of negotiation with a potential acquirer and we are at an advanced stage of negotiation. And we have done a fair amount of institutional introspection and the role that Amplify will play at this call is clearly different apart from me saying that it's inappropriate at this stage to go further.
Operator, we'll take our next question please.
Certainly. That question comes from Incho Raykovski with Deutsche Bank.
Good morning. My question is around realtor.com and obviously the good growth in traffic that you've seen there. Just in terms of the growth, what are the key drivers? Is the marketing which you've spent within the business? Or are you benefiting from the Zillow Trulia merger that's taking place at the moment?
And just on that last point, given that Zillow is moving to a new price structure in this quarter, do you expect to benefit from that as well?
Well, we prefer to focus on the Quadrez rather than the complexities of consolidation of Zillow and Trulio. What we particularly noticed is that really what we expected to be the case not in a cocky way, but in a confident way that the powerful platforms that News Corporation has with it enable us to turbocharge traffic. What's particularly gratifying apart from the great work that Ryan O'Hara and the team are doing realtor is that the audience growth rate is continuing to increase. And so if you look at our mobile audience, which is clearly key in the contemporary environment, in June that was up 79 percent year on year. So quarter after quarter month after month we are seeing increases in both audience and revenue and we're very optimistic about the future.
Thanks. Operator, we'll take our next question please.
And that question comes from Alexia Quadrani with JPMorgan.
Hi. Thank you. My question is just on your commentary on The Wall Street Journal advertising trends. I think you mentioned that they've improved particularly coming into July. Can you talk about I guess how much of that do you think is sort of general industry trends versus some your internal efforts at the journal?
And I guess any color on that front would be great. Thank you.
Well, it's certainly true that the trend has improved at the journal. We started to see some improvement in Q4. What's particularly notable is tech advertising, which of itself tells you that those working in the digital world see the value of print as a platform as well as the complementarity of the journals print and digital products.
Operator, we'll take our next question.
Thank you. That will come from Eric Katz with Wells Fargo.
Thank you. I just wanted to quickly close the loop on Amplify. Just for modeling purposes, is it fair to assume at this stage that somewhere in the range of $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 of expenses fall off the books now? And then secondly on Move, you mentioned some profitability this year and more ahead. Can you just give us a little more detail on the magnitude and cadence of the ramp?
Thank you.
I'll take the one on Amplify. I mean clearly look as Robert said, we are in advanced stages of the strategic alternatives process. We've also previously said that we expect and Robert said that quite clearly a meaningful reduction in sort of cash expenditures. But beyond that, we're not out numbers. And clearly, it will also depend on where we end up at the end of the strategic alternatives process.
As for revenue and realtor, look it's a little invidious to make medium term forecast. Frankly, particularly given the current growth rate as we identified in both traffic and revenue. But in the Q4 revenue was up 32%. What's particularly gratifying and particularly interesting for the long term performance of the company is that the areas that we focused on, which is co broke and media advertising, which had not been a priority in the past, are both growing at a higher rate than that 32%.
Operator, we'll take our next question
please. And moving on to Bill Byrd with FBR.
Good evening. What's your perspective on realizing the full value of some of your other assets like The Wall Street Journal, particularly given the recent sale of the Feet for a very high multiple?
Well, I think we've always had great faith in the value of The Wall Street Journal. But look, I'll let you do the math there. If the Financial Times is worth what the Nikkei Group paid and The Wall Street Journal is a far larger, far more successful, far more profitable masthead, what's The Wall Street Journal worth.
Operator, we'll take our next question please.
And that question comes from Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners.
Yes. I have a 2 part question please. For the U. K. Advertising, what was that percent change down in the quarter year over year with or without currency?
And also just wanted to better understand with the roughly $2,000,000,000 of net cash on the balance sheet, should investors most likely assume you'll be using that for acquisitions going forward and that your free cash flow much of that or part of that would go to capital returns? Thank you.
Hey, Craig. So in terms of the U. K, I think you should think about it in the context of sort of double digit declines on advertising in local currency. I mean we haven't given out the specific percentage, but that's sort of it's been consistent throughout the year in the quarter and we're kind of seeing that continue into the new fiscal year. And with respect to sort of our cash balance and then the sort of annual cash flow, I think we've said in the past that the way to think about cap returns is in the context of our annual cash flow.
And really the money that's on the balance sheet is for internal investments, acquisitions and other opportunistic things that we would want to do.
Operator, we'll take our next question please.
Thank you, sir. That comes from Doug Arthur with Huber Research Partners.
Betty, can you just review the programming sports right cost trends that you sort of see flowing in fiscal 2016? You mentioned something I thought it was the Rugby World Cup you mentioned. What is there anything else out there that could impact the year? Thanks.
For the year in the first half, we're are going to be playing the Rugby World Cup in September, October. So that's something different from what happened in fiscal 2015. Other than that, there's nothing else that's significant in terms of sports rights costs that's going to affect fiscal 2016.
Operator, we'll take our next question please.
And the next question comes from Brian Hahn with Morningstar.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for your time. Can you please provide some more color on how you are able to work the cost base so hard in the News and Information division in the Q4?
So I think if you look at the Q4, we benefited from 2 or 3 things. The first one was we've been restructuring as you've seen over the years. And the benefits of those restructurings have now started to flow through. So that was one piece of it. The other one was in the U.
K. Last year we had mentioned that there was higher marketing expenses. So there was a lapping improvement in the quarter with those two things. And I think generally if you look at our sort of headcount across the businesses that's been coming down and that benefit has also flowed through.
If I could just supplement Betty's answer. When we run the company off 2 years ago, we made clear that the extra focus and the shared benefits of that focus would we expected time of course when you need a fair amount of software investment to a time of course when you need a fair amount of software investment to remain contemporary and to take advantage of emerging platforms. But that extra focus has enabled our very able teams to do that without increasing the cost base in a way that preserves the business.
Great. Operator, we'll take our next question please.
And our next question comes from Craig Huber with Huber Research Partners.
Yes. Hi. I have a follow-up question please. Can you just quickly review for us the opportunity to run realtor.com better than it was run before you bought it please? Thank you.
Well, it's clear that the new team at realtor dotcom has made a significant impact. Look, it is just the start, but the early returns are certainly auspicious. We are continuing to work on driving traffic. We're continuing to work on driving We are continuing to work on driving traffic.
We're continuing to
work on driving revenue. And what is fair to say is that the returns thus far have exceeded our expectations, but also given us confidence in the future that realtor.com will become an important pillar of profitability for News Corp.
Operator, we'll take our next question.
And that question comes from Alice Bennett with CBA.
Hi, good morning. Just a clarifying question. I think for both Foxtel and for Moove you mentioned potentially being EBITDA breakeven in FY 2016. I just wanted to clarify you're talking a sort of run rate at the back end of the year or across the full year talking EBITDA breakeven for those businesses?
I mean, generally, we're not giving sort of quarterly breakouts. But I would say for Moo, we are going to be EBITDA positive for the full year. And Foxtel is going to see an improvement in its EBITDA growth compared to fiscal 2015.
Operator, we'll take our next question please.
Thank you. Bill Bird with FBR.
I was wondering just back to digital real estate. Do you see a pathway to number 1 in U. S. Digital real estate like REA in Australia just given the competitive dynamics and disruption in Zillow and Trulia? Thank you.
We certainly see a pathway. At the moment, realtor.com is the fastest growing of the sites. As you know, it's moved from 3 to 2. It was a year ago, the slowest of the three sites. So the market has already been transformed.
Secondly, the broader characteristics of the U. S. Real estate market are themselves suspicious. You're seeing from last year where there were about 5,000,000 units in volume in property turnover in the States. That rate the annual run rate now is closer to 5,500,000.
You will have noticed the National Association of Realtors, our partner at realtor.com, released some research earlier this week that in Q2 the vast majority of U. S. Cities are seeing increases in property prices. So it's no longer just the elite markets of New York and San Francisco, LA and bits of Miami. It's a broader secular change in the property market itself, which indeed helps realtor.com.
Operator, we'll take our next question.
And that question is from Incho Raykovski with Deutsche Bank.
Just a follow-up from me around FOX Sports Australia, particularly given that a deal was announced earlier this week around the purchase of the NRL rights i9 network. How do you see that positioning FOX Sports and the sort of uplift that we saw in Fox Sports and the sort of uplift that we saw in the pricing, do you think that will be indicative of next time you have to bid for those rights?
Encho, as you well know, football rights are a context for themselves. And the match for NRL rights is probably at around half time and far from over. Really all I can say more about football rights is that I personally am an AFL tragic for those who did translation as Australian rules aficionado. And the specific outcome that I want to see is this Saturday and that would be an Essendon victory.
Operator, we'll take our next question.
Okay. And that question comes from John Genentes with Jefferies.
Just one clarification. Since it sounds like Amplify is for sale, does that mean it goes into disc ops? Or would that not happen until a formal announcement?
John, I mean, it's all we can say is we're looking at alternatives and it depends on where we end up at the end of that process.
Okay. Operator, we'll take our next question.
That does conclude the question and answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to Mr. Floren for any additional or closing remarks.
Great. Well, thank you all for participating and we'll talk to you soon. Have a great day.