BSkyB has high hopes for the free satellite service, which it hopes will be an important source of subscriber revenue in years to come. It was the first major initiative revealed by Murdoch since he took over as chief executive from Tony Ball in November last year.
Speaking after the company announced its preliminary results, Murdoch also unveiled plans to get 10m subscribers by 2010 by spending £450m on marketing campaigns.
"We need to go out and create demand -- it takes a while. What I don't want to do is over-promise," he said about the 10m figure.
BSkyB's shares continued to fall today and at 12.15pm they were down 13.79%, a fall of 83p, to 519p.
Murdoch added that BSkyB would concentrate more on profitability and less on average revenue per user.
He also predicted a digital equilibrium when UK pay-TV has penetrated 80% of UK households and believed it was only 10-15 years away.
"It's more cost effective to have local storage than it is for anyone to dig up the road. The Sky+ box will give us connectivity for the future."
BSkyB's 2004 pre-tax profits rose to £514m from £253m a year ago -- beating analysts expectations.
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