BSkyB has seen an 8% drop in profits in the three months ending 30 September, according to the company’s latest financial results, published today.
BSkyB saw operating profits hit £285 million, down from £310 million on last year.
The broadcaster, which has made a series of high profile investments, most notably in TV football rights as it battles with BT to maintain control of the market, has seen costs for airing Premier League games leap from £540 million per year to £760 million.
Currently BSkyB airs the bulk of the season’s matches and the last quarter has only seen a small rise in customers leaving the business – a churn rate of 0.1% – suggesting BT’s move into live sports coverage has yet to have any real impact.
Total viewing of Sky Sports channels is up almost 15% on last year, including growth of over 40% in viewing through the mobile TV service Sky Go.
New, paid-for subscriptions across the broadcaster’s entire offering was up 800,000 with 110,000 new broadband customers added in the quarter, up 9% year on year.
“We have made a very good start to the year,” said Jeremy Darroch, chief executive. “Strong growth across the board drove a 7% increase in revenues and we added 50% more new subscription products than last year as customers continued to respond to the quality and value we offer.
“Adjusted operating profit was in line with our expectations as we invest in new services and absorb higher Premier League costs.
“We were particularly pleased with the continued strong performance in home communications. Quarterly growth in broadband was up on last year taking us past the 5-million customer milestone. In all, 36% of customers now choose to take all three of TV, broadband and telephony from Sky, over half a million more than last year.”
Connected TV on the rise
BSkyB’s plan to accelerate growth in new connected TV services has had an immediate impact, the company said. A record 642,000 customers connected their Sky+HD boxes to broadband in the quarter. As a result, the number of connected homes reached 3.4 million, up from 1.3 million last year, making Sky the UK’s fastest-growing connected TV service.
Weekly downloads through the On Demand service also grew fourfold in the quarter while the number of film rentals through Sky Store doubled on last year.
