BT’s first season showing Scottish Premier League football and big games in England’s top tier helped it to better-than-expected annual profits.
The telecom giant said yesterday its consumer revenue increased for the first time in a decade after it acquired ESPN’s UK channels and sports portfolio, including Scottish football.
BT also paid £738million to show 38 English Premier League games a season for three years, helping it to add 170,000 retail broadband customers during the first three months of this year.
In addition, it has won the UK rights to show Champions League and Europa League football after paying nearly £900million to show both competitions for three seasons from 2015/16.
Adjusted pre-tax profits were up by a better-than-expected 9% to £901million for the year to March 31, while underlying revenue across the group grew by 0.5%. Revenue from the consumer arm, which includes the home phone business as well as broadband packages with free access to BT’s sports channels, grew by 4% to £4.02billion.
For the fourth quarter they were up 9% to £1.07billion, driven by 24% growth from the broadband and BT’s TV platform.
Chief executive Gavin Patterson, unveiling his first set of annual results as BT boss, announced a 15% rise in the group’s full-year dividend and said this was now expected to increase by 10-15% in each of the next two years.
He said: “We have made strong progress this year. BT Sport has proved very popular and we are delighted the service is now in around 5million homes.
“These results provide a strong platform for growth, from which to achieve our outlook for the years ahead.”
BT said it added 46,000 customers to its TV platform in the final quarter, bringing the total to 1million.
Other BT Sport viewers watch by satellite, online or through separate platforms that buy the service in wholesale deals.
Meanwhile, the group took the number of high-speed fibre broadband customers to more than 2.1million.
BT also announced that a roll-out of its fibre network, which can be used by it and other internet providers, has reached more than 19million homes and businesses – meaning around two-thirds of UK premises can access a much faster service.