The HarperCollins Publishers NOligarchy Profile
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HarperCollins Publishers earns a NOligarchy Score of 56.32 out of 100 — a meaningful improvement from the prior period, driven by newly matched lobbying figures and a revised Wealth Extraction grade, though the company’s political access footprint remains its sharpest liability.
Current Pillar Scores
Political Access and Wealth Extraction include disclosures reported at the News Corp (parent company) level. Playing by the Rules reflects this company directly.
Political Access
32.1
Wealth Extraction
56.8
Playing by the Rules
100.0
Score history — 23 quarters
Tier bands show where each quarter's score falls — no numeric y-axis needed. The dashed ring marks the year-over-year comparison point. Tap any quarter but the first to see its pillar breakdown.
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Political Access Grade: 32.1/100. From Q3 2024 through Q2 2026 (8 quarters — the two-year tracking period), HarperCollins Publishers’ parent structure, News Corp, channeled $2.79 million into federal lobbying attributed to this entity. The score reflects that inherited political footprint — no lobbying firms were retained directly, no revolving-door hires appear on record, and no Political Action Committee (PAC) spending was filed under a standalone HarperCollins entity.
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Wealth Extraction Grade: 56.78/100. The executive pay data flows from News Corp’s consolidated Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. The CEO pay ratio stands at 221:1. No buyback or dividend data is recorded for HarperCollins Publishers as a standalone entity.
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Playing by the Rules Grade: 100/100. No fines and no violations appear in any public enforcement database for this entity across the two-year period.
HarperCollins Publishers ranks 3rd out of 3 companies in its federal industry classification — the Newspaper, periodical, book, and directory publishers sector — finishing last in a three-company peer group. The sector average score is 72.7, meaning HarperCollins Publishers trails that benchmark by more than 16 points. For higher-scoring options in this sector, see the Better Alternatives section below.
The Bottom Line: Lobbying Dollars Flow Through News Corp While Workers Face a 221-to-1 Pay Gap
HarperCollins Publishers, the book-publishing arm of News Corp, generated $2.15 billion in annual revenue in fiscal year 2025. Over the two-year tracking period, the parent structure directed $2.79 million into federal lobbying attributed to this subsidiary — money spent while the CEO earned 221 times what a median employee took home. No regulatory fines or public subsidies appear on the record for this entity, but both the political spending and the pay gap run through News Corp’s consolidated books, keeping subsidiary-level accountability out of public view.
Lobbying on News Corp’s Tab
Over the two-year period, lobbying expenditures attributed to HarperCollins Publishers through its parent totaled $2.79 million. That spend climbed from $760,000 in 2024 to $1.37 million in 2025 before pulling back to $660,000 in the portion of 2026 captured here — a trajectory that suggests deliberate escalation rather than a one-time event.
Because these filings are attributed to the parent rather than filed directly under the HarperCollins Publishers entity, the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) record does not separately enumerate which issue areas or specific bills were lobbied on behalf of this subsidiary versus News Corp’s other lines of business. No outside lobbying firms were retained directly by HarperCollins Publishers, and no revolving-door hires are on the record for this entity. The $86,000 in PAC activity and $121,977 in executive political donations tracked through the Federal Election Commission (FEC) are likewise attributed through the parent structure rather than a standalone HarperCollins filer.
Federal Lobbying Spend by Quarter
$2.8M total
$380K
Q3 '24
$380K
Q4 '24
$380K
Q1 '25
$330K
Q2 '25
$330K
Q3 '25
$330K
Q4 '25
$330K
Q1 '26
$330K
Q2 '26
A 221-to-1 Pay Gap With No Buybacks on the Books
HarperCollins Publishers operates as a private subsidiary and files no independent executive compensation disclosures. The best available figure on the pay gap comes from News Corp’s own filings: the CEO pay ratio is 221:1, per the SEC DEF 14A. That ratio is disclosed at the News Corp consolidated level — not separately at the HarperCollins Publishers subsidiary level, which is not required to publish a standalone figure.
CEO — MEDIAN-PAY MARKER
JANUARY
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passes the median employee’s full annual pay
10:25 AM · January 2
221× the median employee’s pay
At 221:1, HarperCollins Publishers's CEO earns the median employee's entire annual pay by 10:25 AM on January 2.
For every dollar a typical worker earns across a full year, the person at the top of the News Corp structure pockets $221. Whether the pay gap inside HarperCollins Publishers specifically is narrower or wider than that consolidated ratio is not visible in any public filing.
No buyback or dividend data is recorded for HarperCollins Publishers as a standalone entity. Any shareholder return activity runs through News Corp’s consolidated books, where it is not separately attributed to this subsidiary — meaning the scale of cash directed toward capital owners versus the workforce at the HarperCollins level cannot be determined from available public records.
A Clean Record on the Public Docket
No enforcement actions, consent decrees, regulatory fines, or labor-board penalties appear in any public enforcement database for HarperCollins Publishers across the two-year tracking period from Q3 2024 through Q2 2026. No public subsidy grants or tax credits are recorded for this entity either. A Playing by the Rules grade of 100/100 reflects confirmed absence in the databases this project draws on.