Content deals drive Sky Deutschland growth

Sky Deutschland has concluded a raft of programming deals and reported strong growth.

The News Corp-backed German pay TV platform secured key soccer rights and inked output deals with Sony Pictures Television and Constantin Film in the second quarter, giving it exclusive rights to content from both studios across its pay TV and catch-up services.

Sky also extended a deal with ZDF Enterprises, the commercial arm of the German public broadcaster, giving it ZDFE’s crime series for its Sky Krimi channel and on-demand service.

“This has been an important quarter for Sky. We have achieved a number of major milestones across the business, including long term agreements with key studios and sports rights partners, as well as the first positive EBITDA under the Sky brand,” said Brian Sullivan, CEO of Sky Deutschland. “While there is still more to do, both the momentum in our business and the potential in the market are stronger than ever.”

The German pay TV operator added 47,100 net new subscribers by the end of the second quarter, taking its overall customer base to 3.1 million, up 14% year-on-year. The operator saw especially strong growth for its Sky Plus HD service, which now has 584,000 subscribers, up 403% year-on-year, while Sky Premium HD customers were up 64% to 1.2 million. The Sky Go TV everywhere service saw 6.9 million customer logins in the second quarter. Homes with two smartcards grew by 166% to 248,300. Churn fell year-on-year from 12.4% to 11.5%.

Sky turned in positive EBITDA of €23 million, compared with negative EBITDA of €23.4 million last year and confirmed that it expected positive full-year EBITDA next year. Revenues were up by 18% to €326.7 million, with ARPU up €1.47 to €32.16.