Sky leads TV revolution

Sky's profits have soared by more than 40 per cent after an extraordinary boom in the number of homes taking two or more subscriptions.

Almost a third of British homes now subscribe to the satellite TV service, the company revealed today, as it unveiled far better than expected quarterly figures.

Sky added 192,000 subscriptions during the three months to the end of December, bringing the total number of customers to 7.6 million, or 29 per cent of households in Britain and Ireland.

However, if homes that take at least one Sky channel as part of a cable package or Freeview are added, the figure rises to 15.7 million, or 60 per cent.

One of the fastest areas of growth for Sky is so called "multi-room households" where families buy a second package. The number of such households has doubled to 473,000 in the last 12 months as parents buy two subscriptions so children can watch the Simpsons in their bedrooms while football is on in the sitting room. Most take two packages, but around 30,000 households now have three or more.

The company also revealed that its audience figures in early January were ahead of a terrestrial channel for the first time over a full week. In the week ending 2 January, " specials" such as the live Liverpool v Chelsea match and the premier of the movie Bruce Almighty gave it a share of 9.6 per cent of all viewing, ahead of Channel Four.

The figures delighted the City which had been growing anxious about a slowdown in the company's growth. shares rose 5.5p to 577p. There had been concerns among analysts that the BBC-backed free service Freeview was starting to bite into its market. However, the net subscription figure was treble the level in the previous quarter and almost exactly the same as for the same quarter last year.

Chief executive James Murdoch, son of media tycoon Rupert, said the surge in subscriptions had been fuelled by initiatives such as an advertising campaign under the "What Do You Want to Watch" slogan.

Other successes in recent months include winning the rights to Test cricket from 2006 and English international and domestic rugby union until 2010. It has also invested in heavily advertised new shows such as the US drama series Rescue Me about New York firefighters post 9/11.

The growth was across the range of Sky subscriptions. The top-oftherange Sky+ which includes a personal video recorder grew by 168,000 to cover 642,000 households.