BskyB reveals a fifth of AdSmart brands are new to TV as it sees ad revenue grow by 8% to £354m
BskyB has revealed that of the 100 advertisers using its recently launched AdSmart platform, 20 per cent of those brands were new to television advertising, while its television advertising revenue grew by 8 per cent to £354m.
The company, which released its third quarter figures for 2013/14, reported a 6.6 per cent increase in revenue for the nine month period, to £5,666m, although operating profit declined by 8.5 per cent to £910m.
Further figures from the satellite broadcaster for its third quarter included 764,000 new paid for subscription products, bringing the total to 2.4m for the year so far and 74,000 new TV customers during the same three months.
Sky also claimed that almost half of its TV customers were now connected online, with a further 600,000 Sky+HD boxes being connected during the third quarter, and that the unique users of its Sky Go service had grown by 13 per cent on the previous year, to 3,678 million.
Jeremy Darroch, CEO of Sky, said that the third quarter figures were “strong” and added that almost half of its TV customers viewing experience was “transforming” through being connected online.
“Connected customers are watching more TV, they're more loyal and they're more likely to recommend Sky,” he claimed.
"We are making good progress in developing new revenue streams. Our targeted advertising service, AdSmart, is attracting many new advertisers to Sky while our new Buy & Keep service in Sky Store opens up the DVD purchase marketplace for the first time.
"We've also made further strides to increase the range and quality of content across our platforms. Our new original dramas are working well; we've agreed 17 new sports rights deals since January; struck major new partnerships with HBO and ITV; and we've announced today the renewal of our movie output deal with Paramount giving us exclusive UK pay TV rights to hit titles like Noah and Anchorman 2. These continue to make Sky the number one destination for customers who want the best choice of TV.
"All this has enabled us to continue to deliver strong rates of top-line growth. Revenues increased by 7 per cent in the first nine months compared with the same period last year. And, in a year of investment, adjusted EBITDA of £1.2bn is a good result. We're now more than three quarters of the way through our plan for the year and are on track to deliver returns in line with our expectations."
Meanwhile, Sky and Sony Computer Entertainment have agreed a deal to make both Sky Go and NOW TV, Sky's movie streaming service, available through PlayStation4 from this summer.