Sky Television Announces Year End Results

SKY Television announced today a significantly improved result leading to a net profit after tax of $35.3 million.

Total revenue of $440.6 million, was up by 12.6% over the previous year.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) increased by 24.1% to $187.2 million. John Fellet, SKY Television Chief Executive said, “The 2003/4 results were in line with the guidance issued last year and were achieved by continuing improvements across several areas of the business including an increase in subscriber growth, as well as a decrease in operating expenses relative to revenue”.

Viewing of SKY delivered channels reached an all time high which drove churn, or disconnects of existing customers, to an all time low. The growth in viewing came from entertainment channels including recently added Disney Channel, The History Channel and UKTV. News and sports viewing was static.

SKY’s subscriber base reached a new high of 576,602, a gain of 33,711 subscribers over the previous year. This breaks down into 478,080 residential digital subscribers (84%), 91,286 residential UHF subscribers (16%) and 7,236 commercial subscribers.

Churn, the way subscribers who disconnect their service are measured, continued to fall. Gross churn fell from 17.6% to 17.1%.