Sky TV hopes subscribers who stuck with the company through the sporting hiatus caused by Covid-19 will be rewarded by more live sports in the year ahead and a set-top box upgrade the following year.

Reporting its annual result, chief executive Martin Stewart suggested they would also get keen prices for its planned broadband service next year, saying it aimed to provide “great value” broadband bundles.

But noting that international sports competitions remained “pretty up in the air”, Stewart said he would be “a fool not to be worried” about the risk of sporting organisations falling over due to the financial pressures of Covid.

Sky had reached all the agreements it expected with sports bodies over broadcasting fee reductions for the events that had been cancelled so far due to Covid, he said.

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Stewart said its customer base had proved resilient through the pandemic.

Only about one in 12 Sky Sports customers cancelled that service when live sports were annihilated by Covid restrictions in April and late May, and more than half of them had reinstated their service by the end of June, he revealed.

But Stewart said it was really important for all the major sports in New Zealand that international sport started up again.

“Domestic sport is great, but for sports bodies, fans, and for Sky, we have all got to see the return of international sport.”

Sky’s technical team was working on a new set-top box that it expected to release some time in the year before July 2022, Stewart said.

“I can’t say we have made a final decision yet, but it is looking good,” he said.

Surveys Sky carried out with customers suggest the new box will double as a MySky recorder and a media player able to access internet TV services such as Netflix, and will be able to show programmes in 4K.

It may be able to be controlled using spoken commands, in addition to via a traditional remote.

Sky has quizzed customers on whether they would be willing to pay $199 for the device.

”If people see value, I think they will pay for it,” Stewart said.

Sky reported a loss of $157 million for the year to June 30, after it wrote-down the value of its assets by $178m to reflect the uncertainty Covid-19 created over its future profits.

But there were signs it had so far weathered the impact of Covid better than feared.

Overall, Sky’s annual revenues were close to the upper end of its guidance at $748m, thanks in part to a 35 per cent increase in streaming revenues.

It had forecast revenues of $730m to $750m.

There have been anecdotal reports of Sky repeatedly offering steep discounts to dissuade customers from “churning”, but Stewart said it kept a very close eye on offers to avoid “abuse”.

The company’s operating profit before the impairment was $45m and it upgraded its net profit forecast for the current year to $10m to $20m, from its previous forecast of $5m to $15m.

Its also upped its revenue guidance for the year to next June to $660m to $700m, from its previous forecast of $610m to $640m.

Stewart described the result as a good one “given the context of this year”.

The decline in its satellite subscribers base slowed to 5.5 per cent and it ended the year with 585,000 satellite subscribers, after a 6.4 per cent decline the previous year, and achieved “net growth” in June.

Sky’s share price bounced around in the wake of the result – initially gaining ground – but closed down 10 per cent at 14.8c.

Sky said it had to assess the “fair value” of its intangible assets each time it reported its results, and the write-down reflected “the ongoing uncertainty of the impacts of Covid-19 on the business.

The non-cash impairment was supported by an independent valuation of the business and was made with regard to its current share price, it said.

The company said it had cut its staff numbers by about 200, or 18 per cent, since June last year.

As of the end of June, Sky employed 992 staff, but based on its release that number would since have fallen to 937.

Stewart said he saw Discovery Inc’s planned purchase of the television arm of channel Three owner MediaWorks TV as positive.

“I don’t see us as competing for the same entertainment content.”

Discovery – more than many multinationals – did whatever it thought was right for each market in which it operated, he said.

Sky TV carried six Discovery channels and Stewart said he had no doubt the pay TV relationship would continue.

Neither company has so far signalled they expect a change in the current arrangement under which MediaWorks’ Newshub service provides news bulletin for Sky’s Prime TV.

Stewart said Sky expected to begin offering broadband to customers next year, after a pre-Christmas trial.