News boss Robert Thomson sees signs of growth in ad sales

A ­renewed focus on the company’s Australian newspapers is delivering a turnaround in advertising revenue.

NEWS Corp chief executive Robert Thomson has said a ­renewed focus on the company’s Australian newspapers is delivering a turnaround in advertising revenue.

The comment adds to Mr Thomson’s recent claims that the media company had seen “green shoots” of recovery in the long-pressured advertising market here.

Speaking in New York at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia conference, he said: “It is fair to say the rate of decline in advertising revenue in Australia has indeed declined from around 15 per cent in the third quarter to around 11 per cent in the fourth quarter.”

A cyclic downturn in the Australian advertising market has been more unforgiving for media companies with print assets, but signs that the market is bottoming out will cheer investors.

In addition, News Corp’s Australian operations chief, Julian Clarke, reinstalled local sales teams in a bid to improve ­relationships with advertisers.

“At a local level we weren’t doing enough to develop advertising revenue,” Mr Thomson said.

“At that level there have been fundamental changes and quite honestly we’re starting to see ­improvements in local advertising,” he said.

The company’s Australian ­papers, — which include The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, TheCourier-Mail and the Herald Sun — have benefited from a ­reappraisal of print by media agencies, whose buyers purchase advertising space on behalf of ­advertisers.

“Julian Clarke and the team have really energised the business,” Mr Thomson said.

“We’re reasonably confident that over time the extra focus in Australia but also the borrowing of successful ideas from around the world and elsewhere in the business will indeed transform the business.”

A series of initiatives at The Australian have generated a positive response from advertisers, including AccessOne, which extends print advertising campaigns to the masthead’s ­revamped tablet app.

The chief executive of The Australian, Nicholas Gray, said while conditions in the “overall ad market remain short”, the paper was continuing to capture more print advertising expenditure.

“The Australian has carried the momentum from the fourth quarter into the new fiscal year across both print and digital advertising, bolstered by our 50th birthday campaign and the launch of AccessOne,” he said.

News Corp was divided into two entities last year: 21st Century Fox and a company retaining the historic name, with publishing assets including The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the US and TheTimes, The Sunday Times and The Sun in Britain.

Mr Thomson underscored the commitment to print as part of a multi-platform ­strategy.

“The reaffirmation of the power of print, that is important, because print’s role is changing, and the intensity of the print relationship, frankly, is much more so than that of the discursive digital relationship,” he said.

“That’s clear to readers and I think it’s becoming increasingly clear to advertisers.”

Meanwhile, Mr Thomson said pay-TV operator Foxtel — jointly owned by News Corp and Telstra — was facing a “transformative moment” in expanding its reach by bundling television, broadband and home phone services.