ITV inflicts more pain on Sky
BSkyB has reported a loss for the past nine months due to the plunge in value of its stake in ITV, as speculation that it has been approached to offload this to RTL in return for channel Five was revived yesterday.
The UK satellite TV company recorded a pre-tax loss of £118m (US$232.3m) for the nine months to March 31 as a result of a £474m impairment charge relating to its 17.9% shareholding in ITV.
Sky said in February it would take a £343m blow to its finances for the quarter ending December 31 last year due to its rapidly depreciating ITV investment. A further £131m has been heaped on in the three months since.
But revenue for the past nine months rose 10% to £3.71bn. Revenue for the past quarter rose to £1.25bn from £1.2bn for the same period a year earlier, with the company nudging nearer nine million customers on the back of 56,000 net additions.
The company said that it had signed up another 262,000 customers to its DVR service Sky+, putting it in 3,393,000 households, or 38% of its overall base. 465,000 Sky customers now have high definition, up 43,000.
Sky Broadband added 229,000 customers, taking it to1,428,000 while the Sky Talk telephone business grew 180,000 to 1,095,000. Average revenue per user hit an all-time high of £424 while churn stood at 10.5%, its lowest for four years.
BSkyB CEO Jeremy Darroch said it was a strong set of results: "We are delivering for customers through a combination of great quality, value and service. As a result, more customers are choosing Sky, they are more satisfied and they are taking more products than ever before," he said.
Darroch would not comment on whether Sky would consider swapping its stake in ITV for Five after rumours that RTL Group was interested in such a deal in conjunction with Haim Saban first emerged earlier this month.
Speculation on this was revived yesterday when ITV MD of global content Dawn Airey quit suddenly to join RTL as chair and CEO of Five, a broadcaster she was previously CEO of before moving to Sky.
In January the UK Competition Commission instructed Sky to reduce its 17.9% stake in ITV to less than 7.5% - a move it subsequently challenged and is awaiting a high court ruling on in June.
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