Sky Ireland’s business saw revenues fall by £21m (€24.6m) last year, representing a 4% decrease on the 2022 revenues of £531m.
New accounts filed with Companies House in the UK for Sky Subscribers Services Ltd reveal the Irish branch revenues last year totalled £510m – which was a £21m or a 4pc decrease on the 2022 revenues of £531m.
A note attached to the accounts states that the Irish revenues comprise ‘direct to home’ pay television, broadband and telephony services here.
Sky Ireland conducts its business in euros and the bulk of the £21m revenue decrease is understood to arise from exchange fluctuations during the year.
The revenues also comprise of Sky Ireland advertising revenue here in Ireland and advertising revenues were hit by ‘a softness’ in the Irish advertising market last year while Sky TV subscriptions – which make up the majority of Sky Ireland revenue – remained stable for 2023.
The UK Premier League is the marquee product in the Sky Ireland subscription package and last December, the Premier League agreed a new deal with Sky and TNT Sports in which the competition will receive £6.7bn over four years for its UK television rights.
The deal, which runs from the 2025-26 season, will effectively keep the Premier League TV revenues stable although the number of live games is set to grow substantially.
Figures from ComReg show that Sky’s broadband customer base grew by 21,000 to 254,000 during 2023 where the firm was the fastest-growing broadband provider.
Later this year, Sky Ireland is due to launch Sky mobile and offer mobile services – the company has been offering the Sky mobile service in the UK for a number of years.
Overall revenues at Sky Subscribers Services Ltd in 2023 increased marginally to £1.03bn as pre-tax profits increased by 62pc to £99m.
In response to Brexit, directors for Sky Subscribers Services Ltd state that “within the Irish branch, we have implemented additional compliance checks to ensure products placed on UK or Republic of Ireland markets comply with the relevant legislation.”
The directors state that they have opened a warehouse in Dublin to supply product manufacturers in the EU which incurs duty and ensures that no products are moving across the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland borders.
Sky employs just under 1,000 people in Ireland, across a range of functions including sales, marketing, finance, retail, support and customer service.
The scale of the Sky Ireland business here on revenues of €598m in 2023 is underlined when separate figures show that An Post’s sale of 824,278 TV licences in 2023 generated €131.88m in income.
The Government last month announced a funding package of €725m for RTÉ over the next three years funded by a mix of licence fee revenue and exchequer contributions.