Despite the worsening economy, BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) is getting more customers to part with more cash. In the year to June, it added 92,000, beating expectations, while customer churn hit a three-year low and the average revenue per customer grew £4 in the quarter to a high of £427. But operating profit fell £14 million over the year to £752 million – attributed to infrastructure investment and, Sky conceded, both the loss of some Premiership games and the loss of ad revenue from its decision to yank its channels from Virgin Media.
— Broadband: Sky’s broadband investment continued, ploughing £162 million in to infrastructure for that and telephony, plus another £22 million in to its Easynet ISP. Broadband got 200,000 new subs on a net basis in the last quarter, taking it to 1.62 million users. Only two thirds of them pay for their service, though, as opposed to taking it through a marketed bundle. Sky broadband and SkyTalk pulled £249 million sales but cost £401 million to run, Easynet took £178 million.
— VOD: Sky added 1.3 million net new Sky+ customers, up to 3.71 million; half of all new customers in the last three months took Sky+. It’s now knocking £100 off the price of a Sky+ HD box to drive HD VOD take-up. A new HD EPG is planned to create “a foundation for future on-demand enhancements”.
Revenue was up nine percent to £4.95 billion. CEO Jeremy Darroch: