Pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia’s quarterly operating profit fell from $119 million (€92 million) year-on-year to $12 million in the three months to September 30, 2012.
The results include $70 million of production costs and rights fees for the London 2012 Olympic Games, according to Sky Italia’s parent company, the News Corporation media conglomerate. Sky offered coverage of the Olympics across 13 channels.
Sky Italia’s subscriber numbers fell by 40,000 to 4.86 million over the quarter, and are down from five million a year ago. Sky Italia expects the decline in subscriber numbers to slow down in the coming months, according to the La Repubblica newspaper.
The strength of the US dollar was also cited as a contributing factor to the fall in operating income.