Digital TV News

Sky sees TV customer growth slow

Friday 21 October, 2011

By Kelvin Goodson

But more people are adding additional services like HD and multiroom

Sky gained fewer new TV customers between July and September than it did in the three months previous to that, according to the satellite TV providers latest financial results.

While Sky gained an extra 26,000 TV customers over the quarter, this was down by 14,000 from the 40,000 the company added between April and June.

However, Sky still sold more than 250,000 new TV subscriptions over the last 12 months, taking the total sold to more than 10.2 million.

The company said it also saw “good growth” in the sales of additional TV services such as Sky HD, its high-definition (HD) television service, and Sky Multiroom, which allows subscribers to get different Sky TV channels in different rooms at the same time.

Sky has gained over 100,000 new Sky HD customers, which it compares to an overall fall in HD TV sales, and 45,000 multiroom customers - three times higher than in the previous quarter.

The success of Sky Go has also been a boon for the provider. The service, which allows Sky TV customers to watch the channels they subscribe to on their iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC or Xbox 360, has gained 1.6 million users in the three months since it was launched.

Another aspect of the results that will soften the blow of slowing TV customer growth is the fact that Sky has also seen the number of customers buying bundles of its TV, broadband and telephone service increase by 5% over the last 12 months.

Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of Sky, said: “Our job is to give customers the quality and value they’re looking for, with a better choice of programmes, more innovation and peace of mind with a price freeze for 12 months.”

At the end of August, Sky froze its broadband, phone and TV subscription fees for its existing customers until 31 August, 2012.