Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Reports $149 Million Loss

Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch, Executive Chairman of News Corporation, Sydney, Australia, July 17, 2014. The media giant News Corp has blamed a damaging one-off legal charge at News America as the reason behind their multi-million dollar loss.... Jason Reed/Getty

Media giant News Corporation has reported a net loss of $149 million (£102.6 million) for the three months to March.

The figure compares with a profit of $23 million in the same quarter last year.

News Corp, controlled by executive chairman Rupert Murdoch , gets over half its revenue from outside the U.S. and has blamed "currency headwinds" for the drop.

A damaging one-off legal charge at News America, an in-store advertising and grocery coupon business, was flagged up earlier this year. At that time, News Corp said it had agreed to pay $280m to resolve claims that News America had monopolised the market for in-store promotions at more than 50,000 retail outlets across the U.S.

News Corp's businesses include news and information services, book publishing, real estate services and cable network programming as well as pay-TV distribution in Australia.

News Corp's Chief Executive Robert Thomson said the company's third quarter performance was "disappointing."

But, he added, the company believes it is "on track to see improvements in the fourth quarter, with the expansion of our digital real estate business, foreign currency comparisons hopefully beginning to ease, and cost saving initiatives taking firmer root."

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