As a regular follower of moneyam I know this bulletin board loves small shares but please consider BSkyB as it will launch a free-to-air service later this year, which will compete with Freeview. For a one off 150 you will be able to gain access to alomst 200 digital channels and have access to pay per view events with no monthly subscription. 27% of the population cannot get Freeview due to weak transmission and with only 43% population with sattelite or cable there is massive growth potential. (Shares June2004)
BSkyB"s recent figures showed subscriber numbers were 19000 down on expectations of 100000 for the last 3 months, but pre tax profits quadrupled. Expenditure of around 450m will be needed in the next 4 years to support growth.
At the current price of 485p on a PE of 16 the shares are sitting near their yearly low, I recently bought 514p and would aprreciate other peoples views, has this recent sell off been overdone ?

no pakistan uk. and it will be a dirty place by then

HCL technologies, an Indian-based IT firm that manages the companys computer systems, said yesterday that it had been asked to dispose of internal emails on nine occasions between April 2010 and July 2011.

The disclosure follows claims by Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has campaigned on hacking, that there had been an attempt to destroy data at the HCL storage facility in Chennai in apparent efforts to cover up the scale of the phone hacking scandal. The company said it did not know of anything abnormal, untoward or inconsistent behind the requests to delete them.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee, said he was surprised by the letter and said the MPs would continue questioning the company about its role in the hacking scandal.

The fact that so many emails have been deleted at the request of News International raises a number of further questions which we will continue to probe the company about, he said.

In a letter, sent on behalf of HCL by Stuart Benson, a lawyer, the company disclosed that it had been involved in discussions about deleting emails nine times since April last year. It said: It is of course entirely for News International, the police and your committee as to whether there was any other agenda or subtext when issues of deletion arose, and that is a matter on which my client cannot comment and something which you will no doubt explore direct with News International.

UPDATE: European Court Ruling Could Transform TV Soccer Rights

Today : Tuesday 4 October 2011


Europe's highest court Tuesday ruled that the way lucrative soccer television rights are currently handed out in the EU is against single market rules, a move that has financial implications for broadcasters and Europe's major soccer leagues and could change the way the rights are sold across the world.

The European Court of Justice said the current system whereby leagues hand out TV rights on a country-by-country basis and prohibits broadcasting those matches across borders was incompatible with the single market and competition law.

"A system of exclusive licences is also contrary to European Union competition law if the licence agreements prohibit the supply of decoder cards to television viewers who wish to watch the broadcasts outside the Member State for which the licence is granted," the European Court of Justice said Tuesday in a statement.

The court ruling follows a case brought against Karen Murphy, a pub landlady in Portsmouth, England, who showed Premier League soccer matches shown on a Greek TV station using a legitimately-purchased Greek decoder, instead of using a more expensive decoder from British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC (BSY.LN), which holds nearly all the rights to show live premier league matches in the U.K.

The ECJ is ruling after questions were referred to it by the UK's High Court, which needed advice on the EU law aspects of two similar cases; a civil case between the FA Premier League and QC Leisure, which supplied the decoder card, and a criminal case against pub owner Karen Murphy.

The Premier League currently has a three-year deal with British broadcasters worth some $3 billion. It also has other deals in other EU countries, but the U.K. broadcasters pay more than European rivals for their rights. BskyB has the rights to show nearly all live matches in the U.K., while other broadcasters show highlights or delayed matches.

In its ruling, the ECJ said that broadcasters have no right to prohibit the use of foreign decoder cards.

"A prohibition on using foreign decoder cards would go beyond what is necessary to ensure appropriate remuneration for the holders of the rights concerned," the statement said.

BSkyB wasn't immediately available for comment.

Although BSkyB pays a lot for the rights to show Premier League matches live exclusively, the popularity of the game in the U.K. has been a key driver of the company's rapid rise to become the country's biggest pay-TV company.

"Payment by the television stations of a premium in order to ensure themselves absolute territorial exclusivity goes beyond what is necessary to ensure the right holders appropriate remuneration, because such a practice may result in artificial price differences between the partitioned national markets," the ECJ said in a statement.

"Such partitioning and such an artificial price difference are irreconcilable with the fundamental aim of the Treaty, which is completion of the internal market."

The court also ruled that the actual soccer matches are not subject to copyright.

The premier league music, recorded films of highlights, and various graphics can be regarded as 'works' and are therefore protected by copyright, the court said, but "by contrast, the matches themselves are not works enjoying such protection."

News Corp. (NWS) holds a 39.1% stake in BSkyB. It also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire and The Wall Street Journal.

-By Frances Robinson, Dow Jones Newswires; +32 2 741 1486; frances.robinson@dowjones.com

Great result for Mrs Murphy. This could get interesting, bet Andy Grays future employment prospects just got better :O)

19/10 Q1 2012 results
16/11 Full year Ex - Divi date proposed
29/11 AGM

Maybe worth a punt?

Competition Commission U-turn over films on TV may ignite BSkyB share price

Final Results


Record financial performance


· Revenue up 4.5% to £6.791 billion on a like-for-like basis1

· Record adjusted operating profit of £1.223 billion, up 14% with continued margin expansion to reach 18.0%, the highest level for six years

· Adjusted basic EPS up 22% to 50.8 pence

· Full year dividend increased by 9% to 25.4 pence per share

· Additional £500 million capital return to shareholders via share buy-back
Consistent and strong operational growth

· Total products increase by 12% to reach 28.4 million

· 10.6 million customers choose Sky, up 312,000 on the prior year

· Strong customer loyalty with churn of 9.9% in the quarter

· Four million customers choose Sky Broadband for great quality and value

· Largest and fastest growing triple play customer base in Britain at 3.4 million, up 21%

Delivering the best experience for customers

· Breadth of sports coverage continues with new rights renewals for Spanish football, British and Irish Lions rugby and Premier League

· Our second brand, NOW TV, launched on 17 July to give millions of people easy, instant access to Sky content

· Bringing a full suite of Sky services to Irish customers with the launch of Sky Broadband and Talk later this year

· Extending Sky Go with eight kids' channels now available including Disney and Nickelodeon; access to 32 live channels and a broad range of on demand content

· Free-to-air catch-up service to launch in the autumn to include BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and Demand 5; Sky Anytime+ surpasses one million homes, up 57% on last quarter

Sky's movie strength cleared by Competition Commission

Sky's strong position in the pay-TV movie market "does not adversely affect competition", the Competition Commission has confirmed.

British Sky Broadcasting hit a new 52-week high this week of 775p. It currently stands a few pence down from that on 760p, which is 24% up on the share price's low point of 614p almost exactly a year ago.

Much of that was driven by July's strong annual results, which showed a 16% rise in operating profit and a 21% boost to earnings per share (eps), from revenues that were 3% up on the previous year. The dividend was lifted by 9% to 25.4p per share. Current forecasts suggest a payout of 3.6% next year, with the shares on a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of about 13.5.

Keep an eye on this one harry, div .1620p on 24/10. chart going south at mo, might be a chance of £7 or below.,.

Ofcom finds BSkyB "fit and proper" broadcaster

LONDON | Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:17am BST

(Reuters) - Pay-TV group BSkyB is 'fit and proper' to hold a broadcast licence, Ofcom has found, after an investigation sparked by the revelations of criminality at its largest shareholder News Corp.

Ofcom said in a brief statement on Thursday that it had investigated the group after Rupert Murdoch's News Corp admitted some of its journalists had hacked into phones on an industrial basis at its now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

News Corp had been trying to buy the rest of BSkyB it did not already own when the revelations broke. James Murdoch, Rupert's son, was chairman of BSkyB at the time.

'fit and proper'? More like "fit for nothing."

all the same the news will send sp north rather than south for us to get in.,.

Ex-divi 24th Oct '12 (16.2p)

British Sky Broadcasting will release Q1 results on Thursday, on the same day as its AGM. The shares have had a good run since early 2009, but have fallen back since their peak in mid-2001 to today's 718p.

This is another company that pays decent dividends, albeit lower than some, around the 3.5% mark. BSkyB also has a good record of rising earnings, and there are forecasts for further growth in the next two years.

The last full year brought the company a 14% rise in adjusted operating profit, and there is still a share buyback programme in operation, so we have plenty to look for in this quarterly update

1st Quarter Results

Robust quarterly performance with broad product growth and strong loyalty

· Good growth in products and customers, up 533,000 and 48,000 respectively
· One in three customers now takes all three of TV, broadband and talk
· Strong customer loyalty with Q1 churn of 10.9%

Extending leadership in content

· Long-term renewals in sports and movies providing certainty on content leadership
· Spectacular success of Ryder Cup - 4.8m viewers and 700,000 unique Sky Go users
Bringing world-class innovation to customers
· Launch of catch up service offers the best of pay and free TV on demand
· Award-winning Sky+HD box re-launched with six times more storage
· Unique users of Sky Go up 75%, confirming leadership in over-the-top content delivery

Top-line growth and operational efficiency driving strong financial performance

· Revenue up 4%
· Adjusted operating profit up 5%
· Adjusted basic earnings per share up 16%
· Approval sought at 2012 AGM for further £500m share buy-back programme in 2012/13

Interim Results

Further strong financial performance and increased returns to shareholders

· Revenue up 5% to £3,533m

· Adjusted operating profit up 8% to £647m

· Adjusted basic earnings per share up 18% to 28.3 pence

· Interim dividend up 20% to 11.0 pence

Multi-product strategy delivering good operational growth

· Subscription product growth of 615,000 in Q2

· Total subscription product base of 29.5 million, up 10% year on year

· Triple-play penetration of 33%, up 4pp year on year

· 88,000 new customers added in Q2 to reach 10.74 million, up 271,000 year on year

· ARPU of £568, up £24 year on year
Customers responding positively to our content and products

· New services driving increased viewing - weekly On Demand downloads up 150% in Q2; Sky Go users increased 46% year on year to reach 3.1 million

· Standout performance from Sky Sports - record audiences for Ryder Cup and US Open tennis, and over 9 million viewers to first season of Sky Sports F1 channel
Continued excellent progress in cost initiatives and efficiency improvements

· Adjusted other operating costs as percentage of sales reduced by 200 basis points

Great results. Companies are doing great....

sp well down today as BT take on their sports channel semi-monopoly by giving free sports viewing to their own broadband customers...... Murdoch start crying in your Fosters!

Ex-divi Wed 13th Nov (19p)

BRITISH SKY BROADCASTING GROUP PLC - SHARE BUYBACK
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc (the "Company") announces that in accordance with the authority granted by shareholders at the Company's Annual General Meeting on 1 November 2012, on 31 October 2013 it purchased 200,000 of its ordinary shares of £0.50 pence each ("shares") for cancellation.

The volume weighted average price paid by the Company was 933.5014 pence per share.