Sky hit by £500m bill to show live football

sKY’s ballooning bill to show Premier league Football – up almost half a billion pounds – has hit profits.

The pay-TV firm paid an extra £494m to show matches on its channels, driving profits down 11pc to £ 1.01bn in the nine months to march 31.

This came despite revenue up 11pc to £9.6bn as it benefited from a stronger euro and enjoyed success from shows such as masterChef in italy.

sky is not alone in being hit by the cost of securing sports rights. earlier this year BT paid £1.2bn to show european football in the UK after holding off competition from sky.

The steep bill masked a set of strong results from sky, which recruited an extra 106,000 customers in the third quarter – it now has 22.4m.

it unveiled a £194m deal with Us TV firm HBO to produce new drama series and announced a virtual reality experience in partnership with sir David attenborough.

UK advertising was down 3pc at sky in the year to date but Jeremy Darroch, chief executive, said: ‘looking forward, we enter the final quarter of our fiscal year in good shape.’ sky is at the centre of a takeover bid by rupert murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, which wants to buy the 61pc it does not already own, for £11.7bn.

The european Commission has backed it and the bid is now with UK regulators. it could be hit by sexual harassment allegations in the Us at murdoch’s Fox news after pundit Bill O’reilly lost his job there following reports five women were paid millions to keep quiet about the claims. Darroch yesterday said he could not comment on the sacking, adding: ‘What we are doing is focusing on our business.’

shares in the satellite TV giant rose 0.2pc, or 2p, to 984p.