Advertising revenue increased by 13% to £133m in its half-year results, a significant increase on last time. Sky said that, with the majority of the annual negotiations complete for 2003, it remains confident of delivering double-digit year-on-year growth in advertising revenues for the financial year.
Digital subscribers rose in the last quarter to December 31 by 244,000 to 6.6m. Churn fell to 9.4%, representing the lowest level of total churn recorded since the launch of Sky Digital. The new subscriber numbers are up on the 214,000 new subscribers reported in the previous quarter.
Operating profit before goodwill for the period increased to £158m, an increase of 126% on the comparable period and the highest first-half operating profit since the launch of Sky Digital in October 1998. Ebitda for the period increased by 82% from £111m to £203m.
Tony Ball, chief executive of BSkyB, said: "Double-digit revenue growth combined with tight control of costs has resulted in strong margin expansion, driving significant and rapidly growing free cash flow. We are well on track to hit all of our targets and we look forward to the rest of the year with confidence."
The rise puts Sky on course achieve its target of 7m digital home subscribers by the end of 2003. At December 31 2002, the percentage of subscribers taking the top tier Sky World package was 55%.
The number of subscribers to the Extra Digibox increased by 42,000 to reach 117,000 and Sky+ subscribers increased by 27,000 to reach 65,000. Our success in reducing the cost of set-top boxes means that Sky customers can now buy an Extra Digibox for just £99.
Total subscribers in the UK and Ireland to one or more of Sky's channels increased by 196,000 to 10.5m in the quarter, with Sky's own digital subscriber growth being partially offset by another decline in the number of households subscribing to cable.
The quarterly average revenue per digital subscriber (Arpu) in the quarter was £351, an increase of 6% over the three months ending December 31 2001 and £3 higher than Arpu for the quarter to September 30 2002. The changes in UK retail pricing, which took effect from January 1 2003, will begin to be reflected in Arpu from the third quarter of this financial year.
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