Sky TV a happy place for its shareholders
With almost half of all New Zealand households having Sky TV pay television, the listed subscriber-based broadcaster’s total profit after tax was up to $62.7 million for the half-year to December compared with $60.4m in the previous half.
Almost 50,000 subscribers have signed up to Sky’s premium service, Soho, well ahead of expectations. Sky has a total of 846,240 subscribers. Of those, 331,041 have MY SKY compared with 231,072 a year earlier. MY SKY allows users to record shows on a computer hard drive in the decoder. It brought in $83.71m revenue from monthly subscriptions.
The company’s revenue from advertisers was up 11 per cent to $39.02m in the half year to December, from $32.07m a year earlier.
With the new Soho channel, which screens dramas and content from United States channel HBO, it had to pay $4.07m more in programme rights at a total cost of $107.42m in the six months to December.
‘‘Subscribers tell us they love this channel,’’ said chief executive John Fellet in a release to the NZX.
‘‘The uptake speaks volumes to the channel’s success with 49,753 subscribers paying an additional $10 per month for this service, a result which is well in excess of Sky’s expectations.’’
Soho features shows such as West Wing, Dexter and Game of Thrones.
Costs rose as Sky faced extra operating expenses to secure Rugby World Cup content.
Operating costs were up by $19.9m or 8.4 per cent overall.
Buying programme rights and programme operating costs made up $7.4m of that increase.
Sky increased its borrowings $314.51m from $258.45m.
Initial costs for Igloo Limited, its new budget pay television service, were paid
to in this interim reporting amounting to $12.75m.
Joint venture partner TVNZ owns 49 per cent of Igloo, and it contributed $12.25m. The service will be broadcast over the same technology Freeviewhd uses, with 30-day channel packs that can be bought by people who do not already subscribe to Sky for access to 11 Sky channels. It is due to launch by June.
Forsyth Barr analyst Rob Mercer said that Sky continued to invest and expand despite soft economic conditions, which had dampened the level of profit growth for the 2012 financial year.
He picked its online service – free to
period,
Game of Thrones, paying subscribers – as an area of future growth along with Igloo.
‘‘Sky’s online service isky.co.nz has been operating for over a year, but in the absence of affordable data caps from the largest telcos, marketing has been relatively low key.
‘‘The quality of the content available on isky.co.nz is very good, offering the streaming of live sport, catch up TV and movies as well as a huge amount of content now available in its ‘rentals’ library,’’ Mercer said.
Sky Network Television shares yesterday closed up 1.2 per cent at $5.01. Switzerland ........................... Thailand ................................. Tonga ...................................... United Arab Emirates ...... United States ....................... Vanuatu .................................. Western Samoa .................. 0.7842
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