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| BT Sport: a decent start but this is just the warm-up | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Half a million households signing up for BT Sport before the service has launched sounds impressive until you see that the bulk of the punters aren't new arrivals -- they are existing BT broadband customers who have agreed to extend their broadband contracts by 12 months. | Half a million households signing up for BT Sport before the service has launched sounds impressive until you see that the bulk of the punters aren't new arrivals -- they are existing BT broadband customers who have agreed to extend their broadband contracts by 12 months. |
| Still, even with that qualification, the figure shouldn't be sniffed at. Outgoing BT chief executive Ian Livingston has said all along that half the battle will be about winning, and retaining, broadband customers and then selling them more BT services. We're still in the warm-up period, but BT is on the pitch, hasn't pulled a hamstring and is generating some buzz. It's a start. | Still, even with that qualification, the figure shouldn't be sniffed at. Outgoing BT chief executive Ian Livingston has said all along that half the battle will be about winning, and retaining, broadband customers and then selling them more BT services. We're still in the warm-up period, but BT is on the pitch, hasn't pulled a hamstring and is generating some buzz. It's a start. |
| Sky, to judge by the early-season TV schedules, still has a near-monopoly on high-profile games, and thus shouldn't fear an exodus of hardcore football viewers, but the scrap for broadband subscribers is about to become interesting. | Sky, to judge by the early-season TV schedules, still has a near-monopoly on high-profile games, and thus shouldn't fear an exodus of hardcore football viewers, but the scrap for broadband subscribers is about to become interesting. |
| Livingston himself will be watching from Whitehall -- from September, he is the government's new trade minister. Yesterday's results, covering the first quarter, were his last as boss and the 5% rise in adjusted pre-tax profits to £595m was a strong note on which to sign off. | Livingston himself will be watching from Whitehall -- from September, he is the government's new trade minister. Yesterday's results, covering the first quarter, were his last as boss and the 5% rise in adjusted pre-tax profits to £595m was a strong note on which to sign off. |
| The hard work was done years ago. Livingston's five-year reign has been a masterclass in cost-cutting and cash generation. The most critical part was halting the inherited nose-bleed in the global services division, which runs big IT contracts but delivered a £1.6bn write-down in Livingston's early years. These days global services is an under-appreciated UK success story. It is one reason why even a £750m three-year punt on Premier League football rightly doesn't scare the shareholders. | The hard work was done years ago. Livingston's five-year reign has been a masterclass in cost-cutting and cash generation. The most critical part was halting the inherited nose-bleed in the global services division, which runs big IT contracts but delivered a £1.6bn write-down in Livingston's early years. These days global services is an under-appreciated UK success story. It is one reason why even a £750m three-year punt on Premier League football rightly doesn't scare the shareholders. |