Nov 9 (Reuters) - Media conglomerate News Corp beat Wall Street targets for first-quarter revenue on Thursday, boosted by a rise in digital subscriptions at business information unit Dow Jones and a recovery in ad spending.

Shares of the New York-based company, which is a part of media baron Rupert Murdoch's empire and includes the Wall Street Journal and Sunday Times, rose about 1% in trading after the bell.

Dow Jones' professional information business, including high-margin data analytics platforms such as oil pricing agency Oil Price Information Service and Chemical Market Analytics, has been a major driver of growth for News Corp at a time when other key segments like digital real estate services have been seeing large declines.

The company has been seeing signs of recovery in finance and tech ad spending, which bodes well for MarketWatch and other Dow Jones properties, CEO Robert Thomson said in September.

Revenue in the quarter ending Sept. 30 was $2.50 billion, compared with estimates of $2.49 billion, according to Visible Alpha data.

Excluding items, the company earned 16 cents per share, compared to estimates of 12 cents per share.

Following Murdoch's September retirement from News Corp and Fox Corp boards, News Corp is facing renewed activist investor pressure to restructure the company, including a push to spin off some of its assets.

Murdoch is the majority shareholder of a Reno, Nevada-based family trust that owns 39% of the company's voting shares.

Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters Corp, competes with News Corp's Dow Jones. (Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)