Sky Italia profit down sharply on SAC and soccer costs

Sky Italia has reported a sharp decrease in operating profit as programming and subscriber acquisition costs hit its financials. The News Corp-backed Italian pay TV platform reported operating profit of US$82 million (€58 million) for the three months to end-September, a US$46 million decrease on the figure reported in the same quarter last year.


News Corp said that Sky Italia growth was offset by the cost of launching new packages for consumers and costs relating to the soccer World Cup. The pay TV platform added 58,000 subs in the quarter, taking the total to 4.8 million. The rate of net adds was the highest since end-2008.
Meanwhile News Corp reported an overall operating profit of US$1.14 billion for the quarter, compared to US$1.06 billion in the same period a year ago.