Words Dept.: entry

BSkyB discovered a fun way of reporting its “mixed” half-year financial results today. The broadcaster, which announced a £112m net loss because of its pigheaded decision in 2006 to purchase a 17.9% stake in ITV at an hysterically overblown price just to stop Virgin Media doing the same, simply commandeered the business update on Sky News at lunchtime with an advert for itself. It’s one of the advantages of owning a news channel, see?

Rather than comment on the financial issues to hand (for example, the purchase at 135p of almost £1bn-worth of shares now worth just 77p), on-message chief executive Jeremy Darroch was heard to explain that subscriptions to Sky are available at a very reasonable rate and, in fact, its combined packages for TV, phone and broadband can sometimes be considerably cheaper than obtaining these services separately.

Funnily enough, News 24 didn’t run the interview. But I, for one, was gripped. Especially since Sky’s marketing department has been ramming my letter box with leaflets banging on with that same “key message” for several weeks – including one this very day.

Sadly for Sky, things may get worse before they get better. If the Competition Commission gets its way and Sky is forced to reduce its holding in ITV to 7.5%, it stands to lose up to £250m because of the difference in the price paid for the shares and what it can flog ‘em for. Still, as long as it doesn’t affect future series of Project Catwalk, I’m happy.