[ad_1]
Sky TV expects subscribers who stayed with the company during the sports hiatus caused by Covid-19 to be rewarded with more live sports over the next year and a set-top box update the following year.
Reporting on their annual result, CEO Martin Stewart suggested that they would also get good prices for their planned broadband service next year, saying that their goal was to provide “great value” broadband packages.
But noting that international sports competitions remained “quite up in the air,” Stewart said it would be “foolish not to worry” about the risk of sports organizations collapsing due to financial pressures from Covid.
Sky had made all the agreements it hoped for with sporting bodies on broadcast rate reductions for events that had been canceled so far due to Covid, he said.
READ MORE:
* Upcoming Sky TV set-top box could stream Netflix and play Sky movies in 4K, but there may be a $ 199 charge
* Sky maintains sports subscribers, but challenges persist
* Sky TV to attract investors for $ 157 million and enter the broadband market
Stewart said its customer base had proven resilient to the pandemic.
Only one in 12 Sky Sports customers canceled that service when live sports were wiped out by Covid restrictions in April and late May, and more than half of them had restored their service by late June, it revealed.
But Stewart said that it was really important to all of New Zealand’s major sports that international sport start over.
“National sport is great, but for the sporting bodies, the fans and for Sky, we all have to see the return of international sport.”
Sky’s technical team was working on a new set-top box that it hoped to launch sometime in the year before July 2022, Stewart said.
“I can’t say we’ve made a final decision yet, but it looks good,” he said.
Stuff
Sports coverage in the coming year will be different than what fans are used to, Sky TV CEO Martin Stewart warned.
Customer surveys by Sky suggest that the new box will function as a MySky recorder and media player capable of accessing Internet TV services such as Netflix, and will be able to display programs in 4K.
It may be possible to control using spoken commands in addition to a traditional remote control.
Sky has asked customers if they would be willing to pay $ 199 for the device.
“If people see the value, I think they will pay for it,” Stewart said.
Sky reported a loss of $ 157 million for the year through June 30, after it reduced the value of its assets by $ 178 million to reflect the uncertainty that Covid-19 created about its future earnings.
But there were signs that it had so far withstood the impact of Covid better than feared.
Overall, Sky’s annual revenue was near the upper limit of its guidance of $ 748 million, thanks in part to a 35 percent increase in streaming revenue.
He had forecast revenue of $ 730 million to $ 750 million.
There have been anecdotal reports of Sky repeatedly offering steep discounts to discourage customers from “churning,” but Stewart said he was keeping a close eye on the deals to avoid “abuse.”
Tom Pullar-Strecker / Stuff
Relatively few Sky Sports customers canceled their service during the Covid hiatus, and of those who did, most have returned.
The company’s operating profit before the impairment was $ 45 million and improved its forecast of net earnings for the current year to $ 10 million to $ 20 million, from its previous forecast of $ 5 million to $ 15 million.
It also increased its revenue guidance for the year through next June from $ 660 million to $ 700 million, from its previous forecast of $ 610 million to $ 640 million.
Stewart described the result as good “given the context of this year.”
The drop in its satellite subscriber base slowed to 5.5 percent and ended the year with 585,000 satellite subscribers, after a 6.4 percent decline the previous year, and achieved “net growth” in June. .
Sky’s stock price rallied in the wake of the result, initially gaining traction but was trading 8.4 percent lower at 15.2 cents shortly before 2 p.m.
Sky said it had to assess the “fair value” of its intangible assets each time it reported its results, and the downgrade reflected “the continuing uncertainty of the impacts of Covid-19 on the business.
The non-cash impairment was supported by an independent valuation of the business and was made relative to the current share price, he said.
The company said it had reduced its staff by about 200, or 18 percent, since June of last year.
At the end of June, Sky employed 992 people, but according to its launch, that number would have dropped to 937.
Stewart said he viewed Discovery Inc’s planned purchase of the television division of Channel Three’s owner MediaWorks TV as positive.
“I don’t see myself competing for the same entertainment content.”
Discovery, more than many multinationals, did what it thought was right for each market it operated in, he said.
Sky TV aired six Discovery channels, and Stewart said he had no doubt the relationship with pay TV would continue.
So far, neither company has signaled that they expect a change to the current agreement under which MediaWorks’ Newshub service provides a newsletter for Sky’s Prime TV.
Stewart said Sky was hoping to start offering broadband to customers next year, after a pre-Christmas trial.
