Sky Television Announces 2009 Annual Result

Media Release
21 August 2009

Sky Television Announces 2009 Annual Result

SKY Network Television Limited (“SKY”) announced today the result for the year ended 30 June 2009, being a net profit after tax of $88.1 million.

The SKY Board has declared a fully imputed final dividend of 7 cents per share, giving a total dividend for the year of 14 cents.

John Fellet, SKY Chief Executive said, “SKY has had another good year, with an increase in viewership of 6%, reduced churn, continued growth in subscriber numbers and increased average revenue earned per subscriber”.

SKY’s subscriber base grew by 30,326 (4.1%) subscribers over the previous year, to a new high of 778,902. The subscriber base comprises 623,564 residential digital subscribers (80%), 22,772 residential UHF subscribers (3%), 111,260 wholesale subscribers (14%) and 21,306 (3%) commercial and other subscribers. SKY is now in 47.2% of New Zealand homes.

SKY’s results were impacted by the costs of commissioning the new server based digital television station and the launch of High Definition (HD) television. These developments introduced a new layer of fixed costs to the business, the benefits of which will be realised as an increasing number of subscribers choose these new services.

Mr Fellet said, “we have been very pleased with the take up of the new MYSKY HDi services with over 85,000 decoders having been installed in the year to 30 June 2009. Interest in the product amongst existing and new subscribers continues to be strong.”

ENDS

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