BSkyB posts profits despite television subscriptions down

British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) has seen profits rise 16% to £295 million for the three months ending 30th September despite low TV based subscriptions.

Sky signed up 26,000 new customers for its TV services in the three months, which is significantly down on the 96,000 for the previous quarter. There has been a significant rise in Sky broadband users and new and existing customers signing up for all three Sky services (TV, broadband and telephone).

The company reports that 2.9 million customers take all three services, up 29%. Sky Go, which gives Sky customers access to live TV and on-demand programmes on various platforms including iPhone and Xbox has proved successful, with 1.6 million unique users across all platforms.

We continue to deliver strong financial results and good growth in customers and products. In tough market conditions, our move to broadly based growth and multiple products is serving us well. – Jeremy Darroch, Chief Executive of BSkyB.

The news has been received well on the stock exchange, where its share price rose 2.9%. Earlier this year the proposals for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, who already owns 39%, to take full control of BSkyB were withdrawn following the phone hacking scandal which seen the collapse of News Of The World. The newspaper came under News International, a subsidiary of News Corp.