Jul 27, 2017

Sky profits sag as football costs rise

Higher costs for Premier League rights have hit annual profits at Sky despite a jump in revenues and new customers. The satellite broadcaster said total costs rose by 5%, with the £629m jump in football rights accounting for most of the increase in programming costs. "We will continue to identify opportunities to reach new customers through the recently launched new portfolio of channels and pricing to drive growth in Sky Sports UK," he said. George Salmon, a Hargreaves Lansdown analyst, said price increases that followed the higher Premier League football rights costs meant "More customers are choosing to leave Sky than have done for quite some time. Clearly, this presents a problem". Like-for-like revenues in the UK rose 4% to £8.6bn during what Sky called a "Challenging environment" for consumer-focused businesses and "Prevailing headwinds" in the advertising market.

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