Sky TV shares hit low

Shares in Sky Television tumbled to a fresh low after the company wrote $670 million off its ‘‘goodwill’’ and suspended its dividend.

Chief executive Martin Stewart appealed to investors to support the company in a strategy to invest in growing the business.

But they instead sent Sky TV’s share price down 9 per cent to a new record low of $1.12 in midafternoon trading yesterday.

The write-off of ‘‘goodwill’’ resulted in the company posting a $608m net loss for the year to the end of June. Revenues fell just under 7 per cent to $795m.

Sky ended the financial year with 618,000 satellite subscribers.

The near-record net loss of 42,000 satellite subscribers during the 12-month period was worse than some analysts had forecast.

But Stewart said Sky’s adjusted earnings for the year of $97m were ahead of guidance ‘‘despite the disrupted market that we are operating in’’.

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.

Sky wrote off $38m it invested in a new puck device that it canned in June.

Many Sky shareholders will have held shares in the company because it was regarded as a steady-earner with a solid dividend yield. But Stewart said Sky needed to focus on its share price.

Sky TV announced last week that it would buy the world’s largest rugby streaming provider, Dublin-based RugbyPass, for US$40m (NZ$62m).

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