May 01, 2014

Now TV investment impacts Sky's results

From MediaGuardian
Growth in BSkyB's traditional satellite TV customer base has dwindled over the past few years, but investment in Now TV is starting to pay off. "We have had a strong third quarter and continued to grow at an accelerated rate as customers respond to the quality and breadth of our offering," said Darroch. 
BSkyB's pre-tax profits for the nine months to the end of March were £793m, down 17% year on year. However, much of this is due to a non-cash write-off relating to depreciation and amortisation in investments such as Now TV and advertising service Adsmart. 
Profits were also hit by the £70m investment announced to drive its connected set-top box strategy, and a one-off increase in Premier League TV rights costs. Overall BSkyB performed solidly with revenues up 6.6% in the nine months to the end of March to £5.66bn, and adjusted profits down just slightly at 2.4% to £1.2bn
So Sky has made an investment in Now TV, but is it anywhere near enough? My recent experience suggests a service that's not really reliable enough yet to unleash on consumers. It's certainly not a patch on Netflix or BBC iPlayer.

1 comment:

arabiskit said...

I personally think the Now TV service is pretty good. Wouldn't replace my TiVo but on-demand stuff has reasonably decent picture quality and for the most part doesn't buffer - granted I watch it through the PS3 and PC and not one of their little boxes.