Sky TV shares tumble

Investors in Sky Television appear to have responded cautiously to an appeal by chief executive Martin Stewart for them to support the company in a strategy to invest in growing the business.

Sky suspended its dividend yesterday and wrote $670 million off its ‘‘goodwill’’, resulting in a $608m net loss for the year to the end of June.

Revenues fell just under 7 per cent to $795m as Sky lost another net 42,000 satellite subscribers – a figure that was worse than some analysts had forecast and left it with 618,000 satellite subscribers.

Shareholders responded by at one point sending Sky’s shares down 11 per cent to a new record low of $1.10, before a partial recovery saw them close down just over 4 per cent at $1.18 each.

Stewart said Sky’s adjusted earnings for the year of $97m were ahead of guidance. The world was changing ‘‘and so are we’’, he said, pointing to an increase of more than 50 per cent in the number of people streaming programming online from Sky during the year.

‘‘We are transforming Sky and building a new business,’’ he said.

Jarden analyst Arie Dekker said it was disappointing that Sky was continuing to lose satellite customers at levels in line with the past four years.

‘‘Sky has lost 180,000 premium satellite customers over the last five years which has had a significant toll on the business at a time where rights costs have generally been trending up as well,’’ he said.

Sky announced last week that it would buy the world’s largest rugby streaming provider, Dublinbased Rugbypass, for US$40 million (NZ$62M), with the prospect of other investments in the pipeline.

The company also announced yesterday that it had secured naming rights for the Westpac Stadium in Wellington from January.