BSkyB’s new CEO Tony Ball continues to make his mark at the organisation. Ian West, managing director of BSkyB’s Entertainment division for the past year, quit the company on August 18. West had been at BSkyB for ten years. A spokesman would only say that West had discussed his future with new CEO Tony Ball and had left by "mutual consent…and wanted to move on to new challenges." In typical BSkyB fashion West will remain for a period "as a consultant to the company."
No immediate replacement is planned, although one option would be for Elisabeth Murdoch to absorb his former role. West’s departure is the latest in what one analyst described as "Sky’s ever-revolving door" with Sam Chisholm, David Chance, Mark Booth all finding better things to do with their lives. Less than a month ago BSkyB’s general manager, Andrew Keyte, also left.
The week before last, Ball reported buoyant overall subscriber numbers, touching 7.5 million homes (including Eire, cable and ONdigital) and a spectacular 1.21 million digital take up. BSkyB claimed 515,000, or 43 per cent of the 1.21 million digital connections were new customers rather than analogue conversions. Moreover, Martin Stewart, BSkyB chief financial officer, said the percentage of new customers rose as high as 55 per cent in July. "I can’t claim much credit for last year’s results," said Ball. "It’s been a phenomenal couple of months. The free box offer is going gangbusters."
Stewart said BSkyB was now signing up an average of 229,000 subs a month, a threefold increase in average monthly demand. BSkyB insiders expect this to be boosted even further by the Open… offer of free e-mail accounts plus the attractions of BSkyB’s own interactive services, which kicked in last weekend with the flagship Arsenal vs Manchester United premiership soccer game.
However, BSkyB suffered a net loss in DTH subs over the year, and cable is increasingly important, despite the launch of Sky Digital and the lack of availability of digital cable. BSkyB reported operating revenues of Pounds 1,545 million, up 8 per cent on the previous year. DTH subscription revenue (63 per cent of turnover) was up Pounds 11 million to Pounds 979 million thanks to increased per-subscriber revenues.
BSkyB is not expecting any sort of net loss in DTH subs next year, placing the blame for this past year’s shortfall on the slowdown in sales ahead of its digital introduction. "Churn was higher than normal ahead of digital," said a BSkyB insider. "We are confident that the curve for digital will now continue to climb upwards. We expect to soon be back in the usual pre-Christmas boom sales period." If that prediction comes to pass, and bearing in mind the 229,000/month average figure during the early summer, then Sky digital could be in more than two million homes by year-end.
| BSkyB subscribers (millions) | ||
| June 30 1999 | June 30 1998 | |
| DTH | 3.460 | 3.547 |
| Cable | 3.189 | 2.796 |
| ONdigital | 0.204 | — |
| Eire | 0.589 | 0.556 |
| Total | 7.442 | 6.889 |
| Source: BSkyB year-end results | ||
