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British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) said on Friday that there were 613,000 homes in Ireland accessing Sky's offering via cable, which was down from 631,000 a year earlier. However the Rupert Murdoch controlled firm said it had 220,000 Irish users of its digital satellite service as of 31 December 2001.
The company said that it was particularly pleased with the growth in its digital subscriber numbers in Ireland, which increased by 30,000 from September 30 2001 to the end of the year. "There has been strong demand in Ireland for our digital TV service and Ireland now ranks in third place in Europe in terms of digital TV penetration," a BSkyB spokesperson told ElectricNews.Net.
According to its results for the six months ended 31 December 2001, the total number of the company's direct-to-home (DTH) satellite subscribers, all of whom were digital subscribers, was 5.72 million, which was an increase of 218,000 in the three months to the end of December. The quarterly average revenue per user (ARPU) for DTH subscribers was STG331, an increase of 11 percent from the quarter ended September. The total number of subscribers to Sky's channel across all platforms was up by one million in the quarter to 11.2 million, which, the company said, represented around 44 percent of UK and Irish TV households.
Sky's digital subscriber numbers are likely to be further boosted here following its deal with the national broadcaster, RTE, to put its television stations on the Sky satellite platform. And its Irish operation's revenue levels should also be increased by the introduction of interactive services in the Irish market. A BSkyB spokesperson confirmed to ElectricNews.Net that services such as e-mail and betting via digital TV will be available to Irish subscribers "sometime" during the first half of 2002.
Revenues from such interactive services, which are available to BSkyB customers in the UK, amounted to STG91 million for the six months to 31 December 2001. This is more than double from the same period in the year before (STG36.6 million) and for the full year of 2000 revenues from the sector totaled STG93 million. According to BSkyB, interactive income includes income from gaming, on-line advertising, Internet access, e-commerce, interconnect, text services and Sky Interactive set-top box subsidy recovery.
However, interactive revenue was just a small part of the company's total revenues, which increased by 22 percent from the same period a year before to reach STG1.3 billion for the half-year. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation amounted to STG111 million, up 43 percent from the comparable period, and operating profit before goodwill and exceptionals increased by 39 percent to STG70 million.
BSkyB though had to write-off the goodwill of STG985 million relating to its investment in German media group Kirch Gruppe. BSkyB said that it had "no sufficient confidence" that the value of the company would be able to support the carrying value of its investment, but added that it remained intent on recovering the value of its stake, which is about EUR1.6 billion, through a put option that can be triggered from October this year.
Before goodwill and exceptional items, BSkyB's loss before tax was STG62 million, a drop of STG50 million from the same period a year ago. After goodwill, interest, share of joint ventures' losses and exception items (principally relating to KirchPayTV), the loss before tax was STG1.2 billion. After tax, the total loss was STG1.3 billion, resulting in a loss of STG0.718 a share.
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