UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB Plc reported a 13.7 per cent rise in first-half profit today after adding a more-than-expected 215,000 customers to its pay-TV service in the second quarter.
Profit before tax rose to £390 million in the six months to end-December.
The company added 215,000 subscribers to its market-leading pay-TV service. BSkyB shares were up 4 per cent at 505 pence in pre-market trading.
Churn, a key figure followed by analysts to see whether subscribers are sticking with the service, fell to 10.6 per cent from 11.7 per cent the previous quarter. BSkyB said the seasonal effect of Christmas and the lack of price increases accounted for the decline.
After adding many more subscribers than expected in the Christmas quarter, BSkyB said growth in calendar 2006 would be weighted toward the second half of the year. It expects to add 100,000 net subscribers in the six months to June 30, compared with 178,000 in the comparable period last year.
The number of households subscribing to Sky+, the company's digital video recording (DVR) service, rose by more than a quarter of a million, taking the total number to 1.3 million, or 16 percent of the subscriber base.
BSkyB, 37.6 per cent owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is facing renewed competition from the UK cable industry and from the free-to-air Freeview platform, which has quickly grown to more than 5 million households by offering a subscription-free multichannel alternative to Sky.