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How Does News Corp. Make Its Money?

by and Gretchen Gavett

By all accounts, Rupert Murdoch loves newspapers. Last month, with his media empire under assault from the ongoing phone-hacking scandal, he personally arrived in London for the launch of a Sunday edition of The Sun. "Having a winning paper is the best answer to our critics," he wrote in a staff-wide e-mail.

But as the graphic below shows, Murdoch's beloved newspapers have become a smaller and smaller part of his empire over the past 10 years. As three former News Corp. executives recently told The New York Times, News Corp. today has become "a sports and entertainment company with a newspaper problem."

Explore 10 years worth of divisional financial data using this treemap. More about this data »

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Roll over each division to learn more. Divisions that are white are losing money during this period.
IncomeFY 2002
  • FY 2002
  • FY 2011
Source: News Corporation annual reports, 2002 - 2011

More about this data

This data, gathered from News Corporation annual reports, is from fiscal years 2002-2011; News Corp.’s fiscal year ends June 30. In addition, changes in accounting standards, currency, one-time charges and tax planning may all affect profits on a yearly basis.

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