Sky Network full-year profit falls 9.6% on costs of high-definition service

Friday 21st August 2009

Sky Network Television, New Zealand’s biggest pay-TV company, posted a 9.6% decline in full-year profit on costs for the introduction of its digital TV and high definition service.

Net income fell to $88.4 million in the year ended June 30, from $97.7 million a year earlier, the Auckland-based company said in a statement. Sales at the company, which is 44% owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., rose 5% to $692 million.

Commissioning of HD television “introduced a new layer of fixed costs to the business, the benefits of which will be realized as an increasing number of subscribers choose these new services,” chief executive John Fellet said.

Sky’s subscriber base grew by 30,326 subscribers, or 4.1% and the company’s services are now in 47.2 percent of New Zealand homes, it said. Advertising revenue fell 13.1% to $57.8 million.

It will pay a final dividend of 7 cents a share, unchanged from a year earlier, making 14 cents for the year.

Shares of Sky fell 0.9% to $4.59 and have surged 26% this year. The full-year profit beat the $91.7 million forecast from Forsyth Barr.

Businesswire.co.nz

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