BSkyB profits up on new customers

BSkyB has already won the rights to show even more football

Satellite TV broadcaster BSkyB has said its profit gained in the last quarter as more customers signed up for its high-definition digital services.

Pre-tax profits at BSkyB rose 13% to £63m between January and March.

BSkyB said it had seen a net gain of 80,000 customers, up 43% from the same period last year. Its Sky+HD service saw net additions of 243,000 customers.

Revenue rose to £1.4bn, from £1.25bn in the same period last year. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns 39% of BSkyB.

High definition

Sky has a total of more than 9.3 million customers, with 5 million of those now subscribing to Sky+.

More than one million subscribers now watch Sky's high-definition service.

Customers who have TV, broadband and a telephone service with Sky are now about 15% of the broadcaster's total users, up from 9% a year ago.

"Looking ahead to the rest of 2009, we expect conditions to remain challenging," BSkyB said. "In difficult times, customers are making careful choices."

In February this year, BSkyB won the rights to show more than 80% of live televised Premier League games in the UK from 2010, beating rival Setanta.

News Corp is BSkyB's largest shareholder. Its other main businesses include film studio 20th Century Fox, and the Sun, Times and Wall Street Journal newspapers.

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