LONDON: Telecoms titan BT signed more than 60,000 customers to its fledgling BT Vision TV service by the end of October, on course to hit its target of 100,000 by Christmas. But group profits fell 17% year-on-year according to its Q3 results.
The company will spend around £100 million ($210m; €144m) during 2007 on BTV, which offers seventy free TV and radio channels, plus pay-per-view content and 'nearly live' Premiership soccer games for a monthly fee.
Users of BTV require BT's broadband service, which currently has four million customers (a market-leading 35% share), and is one of the key props of the company's plans for future growth.
A £450m restructuring programme (which includes over 1,000 managerial job cuts), combined with a decline in users to its fixed-line telephone service, are two factors in the decline, but full year pre-tax profits were still forecast at £1.035 billion.
Ceo Ben Verwaayen said: "We are achieving significant transformation of our business which will deliver further efficiencies alongside faster, better, smarter services for our customers."
Data sourced from bbc.co.uk; additional content by WARC staff
