YouView attracts subscribers for TalkTalk; Improved profit margin but revenues down

Revenues decreased 1.9% at TalkTalk after eight consecutive quarterly falls in customer numbers and was pushed out of the number three slot earlier this month by BSkyB.

Revenues fell to £828 million in the six months to 30 September, compared with £844 million in the same period last year. Profit before tax rose 12.1% year on year to £46 million, as the operating margin improved sharply.

TalkTalk now has a total of just over 4 million broadband customers, slightly behind Sky which now occupies the number three slot with 4.1 million, behind BT with 6.3 million and Virgin Media with 4.2 million. Attrition slowed with only 4,000 subscribers lost in the most recent quarter, down from 13,000 last quarter.

Following the relaunch of TalkTalk’s television service, which has attracted 29,000 users and is built around the YouView set top box, September and October saw overall subscriber numbers increase. The YouView television service is now being installed in 1,000 homes a day.

While BSkyB and BT wrestle with each other over expensive football rights, TalkTalk is attempting to pick up customers by not entering a bidding war on content rights. Read Raymond Snoddy’s recent opinion piece on content rights.

“It’s our best trading result for two years,” said CEO Dido Harding. “We’ve seen positive growth for the last couple of months.”