It took a while following its acquisition of Dow Jones Co., but in its first quarter for fiscal 2011, News Corp. has lumped HarperCollins into a group with integrated marketing services (supermarket inserts) and the newspaper and information segment. The official News release makes no mention of how HarperCollins performed in the period, although News Corp.'s filing with the SEC said sales at Harper were lower in the quarter "because of fewer new releases." HC's sales in last year's first fiscal quarter were $310 million, about 15% of group revenue.
Total revenue in the new publishing group, which is dominated by newspapers and information services, rose 3%, to just over $2 billion, and profits increased 50%, to $178 million. News attributed the jump in earnings primarily to improvements in the newspaper business.
