News Corp reported full-year fiscal 2026 revenue of $9.03 billion on August 5, 2026, a 7% increase, with net income from continuing operations rising 15% to $743 million (News Corp). The results, released via live audio webcast at 5:00 p.m. ET, accompanied a sharply worded assault by CEO Robert Thomson on AI firms he accused of systematic intellectual property theft.

Thomson used the results announcement to criticise AI models that "pilfer and profit from our work," warning that absent News Corp's journalism, "users would be drowning in a slimy sea of AI slop" (The Guardian). He pledged to pursue AI "pilferers" and framed the issue in terms designed to extend liability beyond the model providers themselves: companies that are clients of these "crass kleptomaniacs," Thomson said, are "patently in possession of stolen goods."

The rhetorical aggression sits alongside News Corp's existing commercial agreements with OpenAI and Meta (The Guardian). That dual posture — licensing with some AI firms while branding others as thieves — draws a deliberate line between partners and non-partners, casting unlicensed training on News Corp content as theft by definition. The "stolen goods" framing, aimed at enterprise clients rather than only at model developers, signals a strategy to pressure demand-side adoption of licensed content sources.

Australian digital subscriptions edge down

At News Corp Australia, a division encompassing the Australian, the Daily Telegraph, and the Herald Sun, digital subscribers fell from 1,166,000 to 1,162,000 during the financial year ending June 30, 2026 (The Guardian). The decline is modest in absolute terms — 4,000 subscribers — but breaks a growth trajectory visible earlier in the fiscal year. As of March 31, 2026, News Corp Australia reported 1,171,000 closing digital subscribers, up from 1,148,000 a year earlier, with news masthead subscribers rising from 981,000 to 992,000 (News Corp Investor Relations). The full-year figure suggests a net contraction in the fourth quarter that erased gains accumulated through the first nine months.

Broader news media unit: mixed signals and new costs

News Corp's wider news media division, which includes the Sun and the Times in London alongside the New York Post, recorded mixed results. Advertising revenue fell 2% during the year to June 30, 2026 (The Guardian). The division also absorbed costs tied to the launch of the California Post, a Los Angeles outpost of the New York Post edited by Nick Papps, adding startup expenditure to a unit already navigating softening ad markets.

The regulatory backdrop in Australia

The results landed as the Albanese government contests plans to expand Australia's news bargaining incentive, a mechanism that would require tech giants to compensate media outlets for news content distributed on their platforms, either through commercial deals or a higher levy (The Guardian). The government's resistance to expansion complicates the operating environment for publishers like News Corp that are simultaneously pursuing licensing deals, litigation threats, and regulatory intervention to monetise their content in the AI and platform era.

Tracing the fiscal year arc

The full-year results cap a fiscal period marked by uneven momentum. Second-quarter revenues reached $2.36 billion, a 6% increase from $2.24 billion in the prior-year quarter (News Corp Investor Relations). Third-quarter net income from continuing operations was $121 million, up 13% from $107 million year over year (News Corp Investor Relations). For context, News Corp beat expectations for fiscal 2025 fourth-quarter revenue, driven by digital subscription growth (Reuters). The fiscal 2026 full-year numbers show continued top-line and profitability expansion, but the Australian subscriber decline and the advertising dip in the news media division point to softening in segments that had previously carried growth.

The contrast between the company-wide financial improvement and the granular pressures in Australia and advertising invites scrutiny. Revenue growth at the corporate level can mask segment-level erosion that compounds over time — a single year of flat or declining subscriptions does not reverse a business model, but consecutive quarters of contraction in markets previously positioned as growth engines warrant close tracking. The California Post investment adds further cost pressure to a division already contending with a 2% advertising decline, and the payback timeline for that LA launch remains undefined in the available disclosures.

Thomson's decision to use the results platform primarily as a vehicle for his AI offensive is itself a strategic signal. By foregrounding the IP-theft framing alongside financials showing the company's content businesses under strain, he is linking the two narratives: the subscription and advertising pressures facing News Corp's journalism are, in his telling, inseparable from the unchecked extraction of that journalism by AI firms that have not struck licensing deals. Whether that argument gains traction with regulators, courts, or enterprise customers will shape the next phase of the publisher-AI confrontation.