There will be a reckoning with social media platforms as readers crave integrity, says News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson. Mr Thomson, commenting during the presentation of News Corp's first-quarter results, defended the decision not to outbid Optus. "You can buy any right as long as you're prepared to pay any price. But, sometimes, by our reckoning, any price is not appropriate for us or our shareholders," Mr Thomson said. "There are some EPL fans in Australia, there's no doubt about that, but we're certainly not talking about prime time. The 3pm kickoff in UK is 2am in Australia. " Fox Sports has been criticised for the loss of the Premier League, although it is not yet known how it will impact subscriber numbers.

"Hardcore fans of anything in Australia are called tragics, but the sweet spot for EPL at 2 in the morning [is]: tragics are insomniacs," Mr Thomson said. "You might have noticed yesterday, Bayern Munich beat Arsenal 5-1 in the Champions League which may be itself an indictment of the value of the Premier League." Arsenal is currently tied for first place in the Premier League, while Bayern Munich sits on top of Germany's Bundesliga. Bayern has won the last three Bundesliga titles and has won the league 25 times. It also won the Champions League in 2013. Arsenal last won the Premier League in 2004, have 13 first division titles. However, they have never won the Champions League. The comments came as News Corp's first-quarter total revenue fell 4.5 per cent to $US2.014 billion ($2.82 billion) from $US2.108 billion in the year-earlier period.

Net profit rose 31.2 per cent to $US143 million in the three months ended September 30. The improvement was thanks to a tax benefit on the sale of the company's loss-making education business Amplify, it said. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 15 per cent to $US165 million. Revenue from News Corp's news and information services division, which includes The Wall Street Journal, The Sun and The Australian, fell 11 per cent to $US1.3 billion, while cable network revenue also declined, falling 11 per cent to $US124 million. In contrast, online real estate revenues surged 71 per cent in the quarter to $US191 million, including $85 million from Move, which includes realtor.com that it acquired in November 2014 and from its majority-owned REA Group.