Sky is increasingly looking towards a paid-for channels model. It announced in June that Sky Sports News would be subscription only from later this summer and will be replaced on Freeview with a time shifted version of Sky 3. Its other two Freeview channels are Sky 3 and Sky News.
Darroch said: "We have no plans to launch any free to air channels. We like pay, we like the way it allows us to grow subscription revenue and keep the investment cycle. In direction, we are going the other way and Sky Sports News is going behind a paywall in August."
When Sky bought Virgin Media Television, now renamed Living TV Group, it did not license the Virgin brand and it is yet to announce what it intends to do with the Freeview channel Virgin1.
According to , in the 12 months to the end of June, adjusted revenue at BSkyB was £5,912m, up 11% year on year and adjusted operating profit was £855m, up 10% year on year. Ad revenue for the period was £319m, up 4% year on year.
Sky spent £1.1bn on marketing in the 12 months to 30 June, an increase of 23.3% year on year which Andrew Griffith, chief financial officer of BSkyB, credited with the addition of 1.6 million customers over the past 12 months.
Griffith said: "We take a short-term cost of that, but it’s a very good investment. It scales with the volume of customers that we acquire and the payback on that is as good as ever."
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