BSkyB closes financial year with increase in profits

The broadcaster's customer base stood at 9.86 million at the end of June, with 30 per cent of subscribers now taking Sky's high definition services.

Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said SkyHD boasted twice as many customers as a year ago after 429,000 net additions in the fourth quarter, while one in five customers now have each of TV, broadband and telephony – up 36 per cent on last year.

He added: "We've had another good quarter to bring our financial year to a strong close."

BSkyB reported adjusted operating profits of 855m, up 10 per cent on a year earlier, while bottom-line pre-tax profits rose to 1.17bn due to the disposal of shares in ITV, after a write-down on the holding a year ago. The company recently rebuffed a 700p-a-share approach from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for the 61 per cent of BSkyB that NewsCorp does not currently own, a move valuing the FTSE 100 Index company at around 12bn.

BSkyB called for an offer in excess of 800p a share, although it agreed to begin work on the regulatory process required for a tie-up.

BSkyB is to increase prices for its sports customers from September in a move that will also trigger higher charges for wholesale customers such as BT.

The price increase was announced earlier this month at the same time as BT said it was slashing the cost of watching Premier League football to as little as 6.99 a month in a major push into the pay-TV market.

BSkyB said the increase reflected higher investment in Sky Sports following the start of a new broadcast contract with the Premier League.

However the increase is likely to mean that BT Vision suffers big losses on providing its sports coverage through the wholesale offer of Sky Sports 1 and 2.

BT's pay-TV push comes after it was allowed to offer Sky Sports in the wake of a ruling by communications watchdog Ofcom that BSkyB must sell its premium sports content to rivals at regulated prices. As well as the new Premier League contract, Sky has announced a multi-year partnership for new programming from Home Box Office – a subsidiary of Time Warner – and a new line-up of UK comedy on Sky1 HD.

During the quarter Sky said it added 119,000 broadband customers, 137,000 telephony customers and 214,000 for line rental.