BSkyB adds 80k subscribers in quarter to end-March

British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc (BSkyB) Results for the nine months ended 31 March 2009

BSkyB (LSE:BSY) net customer additions for the quarter were 80,000, 43% higher than the rate in the prior year, taking our total base to 9.318 million. Gross customer additions were 13% higher year on year at 327,000 and churn was 10.6%, broadly in line with the prior year – a good performance in a challenging environment.

We continue to see strong demand from our existing customers to take more products from us and we passed some significant milestones in Sky+, Sky+HD, broadband and telephony during the quarter. As we continue to unlock the considerable value in our existing customer base, growth in paid-for products translated into a new high in ARPU
of £452.

Strong Take-up of High Definition

We continue to see a significant opportunity in high definition (HD) and have been positioning the business over several quarters to take advantage of this long-term trend. On 28 January 2009, we set a new everyday low purchase price of £49 for a Sky+HD box. This was met with an accelerated rate of take-up, leading to HD net additions of 243,000 in the quarter. As well as strong demand from existing customers, HD has been a key driver of new customers with around a quarter of HD additions in the quarter being new to Sky. Behind this performance is our innovative Sky+ technology, the enhanced picture and sound quality of HD, and our outstanding range of content from great brands, with 33 channels broadcasting over 12,000 hours of HD content every month.

The success of Sky+HD was the principal driver for very strong growth in Sky+ net additions, which increased by 55% year on year to 406,000. Today, over five million customers, 54% of the total customer base, choose to control their viewing with Sky+.

More than ever before, households want to personalise their TV experience through the use of innovative Sky+ technology and additional features like Sky Anytime and the recently launched iPhone ‘remote record’ application. Across all Sky+ households there are 17 million instances of time-shifting per day.

Customer Metrics:

                          Quarterly Net Additions
                          -----------------------  Closing Base
'000s                        31-Mar-09  31-Mar-08     31-Mar-09
                          ------------  ---------  ------------
Net Customer Additions              80         56         9,318
 Additional products
  Sky+                             406        262         5,056
  Multiroom                         46         40         1,769
  Sky+HD                           243         43         1,022

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