This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38754997
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Sky profits dented by higher football rights costs | Sky profits dented by higher football rights costs |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Broadcaster Sky has reported a 9% fall in operating profits after paying more for broadcast rights to Premier League football matches. | |
| Operating profits at the company fell to £679m for the six months to 31 December. | |
| However, Sky said that its financial performance had been "good". | |
| Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox owns 39% of the company. Late last year, it offered to buy out the remaining 61% of the business. | Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox owns 39% of the company. Late last year, it offered to buy out the remaining 61% of the business. |
| Fox needs regulatory approval for the $14.6bn offer in both the UK and Europe, where it does about a third of its business. | Fox needs regulatory approval for the $14.6bn offer in both the UK and Europe, where it does about a third of its business. |
| Sky has 22 million customers in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria. | |
| Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: "In a year in which we are absorbing significantly higher programming costs, as a result of the step up in Premier League costs, our financial performance has been good." | Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: "In a year in which we are absorbing significantly higher programming costs, as a result of the step up in Premier League costs, our financial performance has been good." |
| Operating profit was £65m lower on the year before, even though it absorbed an additional £314m of Premier League costs in the period. | |
| The company said it had added more than 500,000 new customers. | |
| However, in the UK, its churn rate, the annual percentage rate at which customers stop subscribing to a service, rose to 11.6% from 10.2% in the same period the year before. | |
| Sky said this reflected the increased proportion of broadband customers, who have a greater propensity to switch providers. | |
| It added that six million households were Sky broadband customers. |