BT has today announced its half year results to 30 September 2013, revealing that two million customers are now signed up to BT Sport.
BT has made a three-year, £1.5 billion investment in premier league football rights as it has ventured into the pay-TV market. The high-profile move has caused a stir over the past six months as BT has pushed into territory dominated by rival Sky.
However, the venture appears to have an impact on short-term profits, with the company reporting a -13% drop on last year’s results to just £948,000.
Revenues were also down -1% on last 2012’s half-year results to £8.9 million, yet the launch of BT Sport has had a positive impact on BT’s line, broadband and TV customer numbers in the quarter.
Consumer line losses of 65,000 were 64% better than last year and the lowest for five years.
BT added 156,000 retail broadband customers, representing 93% of the DSL and fibre broadband market net additions, taking its broadband customer base to around 7 million.
The company also added 70,000 TV customers taking the base to over 900,000.
“These are good results, with growth in earnings per share and free cash flow,” said Gavin Patterson, chief executive officer.
“This has been our strongest ever quarter for fibre take-up with Openreach net connections up 70%. Our fibre network now passes more than 17 million premises. It is open to all and many other service providers have now got behind it.
“BT Sport has made a confident start and is already delivering for viewers. More than two million of our customers are signed up to it and our wholesale contract with Virgin Media means it is available to around four million homes in total.”
