[denphone]

BSkyB posts profit of almost £1bn.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012...fit-almost-1bn

BSkyB has delivered profits of almost £1bn in the nine months to the end of March, fuelled by £31m that Rupert Murdoch was forced to pay out after News Corporation failed to take full control of the satellite broadcaster.

BSkyB, which grew revenue by 5% year-on-year in the nine-month period, has reported a 25% surge in operating profit to £939m.

The company said that the performance, which far outstripped the £752m it made in the same period to March 2011, was fuelled by the £31m break free News Corporation paid after having to drop its bid for the 60.1% of BSkyB it did not already own in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed the company.

BSkyB, which reported a healthy 27% increase in pre-tax profits for the nine months to the end of March, added 78,000 new customers in the first quarter 2012 to take its total customer base to 10.55 million.

"In what remains a tough economic environment, strong and consistent execution of our plan has delivered good growth across our product range," said Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of BSkyB.

In the first quarter of the year BSkyB added just 15,000 TV customers in the first quarter to take its total to 10.23 million.

The company signed up 159,000 customers to its high-definition TV service, taking the total base to 4.2 million.

BSkyB managed to add 212,000 broadband customers taking the total to 3.86 million and 220,000 to its telephony services taking the total to 3.6 million.

Just over 30% of Sky customers took a triple play of TV, broadband and telephony from BSkyB as at 31 March, up from 26% in the year to the end of March 2011.

Average revenue per user, a key metric monitored by analysts grew by £9 year-on-year to £546m.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said that ARPU should have increased by £34 given increased number of products that BSkyB has sold to its customers.

BAML said that this implied "spin down" – meaning customers looking to take cheaper packages – and discounting by BSkyB to retain customers