Sky in $250m deal with HBO; Rise in Premier League costs hits profits

Sky said it had signed a multi-year $250m (£195m) co-production deal with US television network HBO as operating profits fell 11% to £1.01bn for the nine months to April.

Revenues rose by 5% on a constant currency basis to £9.6bn, despite a £494m increase in the costs of screening live English Premier League football.

Sky said weak consumer markets in the UK and Italy had resulted in tougher advertising markets in calendar 2017.

“In spite of this, our advertising revenue was up 4% to £613m, boosted by the strong performance of our TV8 free-to-air channel in Italy, greater reach of our wholly-owned channels through customer growth in Germany, and Sky Adsmart in the UK,” Sky said.

It added that more than 100,000 new customers had joined in the most recent quarter, with 769,000 added in the last year, taking the total customer base to 22.4m.

Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said Sky was “on track financially” for the full year “despite the broader consumer environment remaining uncertain”.