Today, SKY Network Television Limited declared the result for the year ended 30 June 2009, posting a net profit after tax of $88.1 million.

A fully assigned final dividend of 7 cents per share was put forward by the SKY Board, giving a 14-cents total dividend for the year.

"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," said John Fellet, SKY Chief Executive.

Nearly 41% year-on-year growth was noticed in SKY's subscriber base, with 30,326 subscriber additions leading to a new high of 778,902 subscribers.

It should be noted that 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, are included in the subscriber base. Presently, 47.2% of New Zealand homes have SKY.

The costs of commissioning the new server based digital television station and the launch of High Definition (HD) television influenced the results for SKY. Via these developments, a new layer of fixed costs was introduced to the business, the profits of which will be realized as an increasing number of subscribers select these new services.

"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," concluded Mr. Fellet.