London - British Sky Broadcasting Group, the UK’s biggest pay-TV provider, reported first-quarter revenue rose 4.8 percent after customers took more of its products as it competes with BT Group.
Sales rose to 1.93 billion pounds ($3.1 billion) in the three months through September, the Isleworth, England-based company said in a statement on Thursday.
The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for revenue of 1.94 billion pounds. BSkyB customers signed up for 760 000 new paid-for subscription products in the period.
BSkyB, about 39 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, agreed in July to buy Fox’s Sky Italia unit and a majority stake in Sky Deutschland. The purchase will bring Murdoch’s European TV assets under one roof, creating a media powerhouse serving programmes via cable and satellite to 20 million subscribers in five European countries.
BT, the UK’s former phone monopoly, added 341 000 connections to its fibre broadband service in the second quarter as it offered sports TV channels free of charge to paying broadband customers.
Bloomberg