Sky unscathed by Champions League loss as profits jump 10%
Sky beat City forecasts with a strong first quarter in the UK and said it saw no real impact from losing the Champions League coverage to archrival BT this season.
Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: “We are looking forward to the important Christmas quarter which will see more simultaneous programme launches across the UK, Germany and Italy such as The Last Panthers on Sky Atlantic next month.”
After its full takeover of the German and Italian Sky businesses, Sky is focusing on bringing content, technologies and procurement more into line across Europe.
Asked about the Champions League shift, he said: “We’ve pretty much sailed on as we did in the fourth quarter.”
Darroch also repeated his call for a full Competition & Markets Authority investigation into BT’s OpenReach network business which he believes should be separated.
First-quarter operating profits rose 10% to £375 million off 134,000 new customers, beating analysts’ average forecasts of £366 million and 93,000 new users.
Shares rose 30p to 1099p.