Sky lost 214,000 customer relationships across Europe in the second quarter of 2020, reducing its total to 23.72 million. Average revenue per Sky customer fell to $49.29, down from $51.19 the previous quarter or $54.31 in the second quarter the previous year. Parent company Comcast lost 427,000 residential video customers in the second quarter and lost a further 51,000 business video customers.
Sky and Comcast were affected by the coronavirus restrictions in the second quarter. Overall quarterly revenues were down by 11.7% year on year at $23.72 billion.
“The solid results that we delivered in the quarter highlight the resilience of our company,” said Brian Roberts, the chief executive of Comcast Corporation. “At Sky, our flexible strategy helped retain customers until key sports returned in May and June.”
Sky retained 95% of its sports subscribers since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, having paused payments for some sports services. Sky saw a decline of 1% of its customer relationships. That includes subscribers to its satellite television services, which Sky does not break out separately. Sky revenue for the quarter was down 12.9% year-on-year to $4.08 billion.
Direct-to-consumer revenue for Sky decreased 6.7% to $3.5 billion, primarily reflecting a decrease in average revenue per customer relationship, driven by the impacts of coronavirus restrictions, which resulted in lower sports subscription revenues, as well as decreases in customers receiving services.
Advertising revenue decreased 41.2% to $321 million, due to overall market weakness, which was worsened by the coronavirus context.
Programme revenue was down 35.7% to $234 million, due to lower revenue from sports programming as a result of the postponement of sporting events.
In the United States, the number of Comcast residential video customers declined to 19.47 million, having fallen below 20.00 million in the first quarter.
However, Comcast added 323,000 internet customers, the highest increase in the second quarter for 13 years, after gaining 466,000 in the first quarter.
The company also released Peacock, its streaming service on 15 April, available free to Xfinity X1 and Flex customers, with 10 million sign-ups ahead of its national launch on 15 July.