BSkyB back to profits

net1

British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc, Rupert Murdoch's UK pay-television company, reported its first annual profit since it began its hefty investment in digital TV began five years ago. For the year the company achieved £3.186 billion (E4.55 billion) in turnover and an operating profit of £371 million (E530 million). The company now has 6.8 million DTH subscribers, an increase of 744,000 on the year and an ARPU of £366 (E512) up five per cent compared to last year. CEO, Tony Ball, said he is "highly confident" of meeting the company's seven million subscriber target by the end of 2003 and he also announced that he is expecting to reach eight million subscribers with an ARPU of £400 (E560) by the end of 2005. The company plans to achieve the rise in subscribers is by a segmentation strategy. "There are 17 million non-Sky homes in the UK," Ball said, "three million of these are young families and mature families, which are our priority target. If we add this to another three million targets in other groups it give us a total of six million. We only need to get 17 per cent of those to reach the eight million subscribers by 2005."