Shares in Sky surged after the broadcaster reported that operating profits had broken through the £1 billion barrier in the first nine months of the year.
In an update to the markets on Tuesday, Sky hailed an “excellent performance” for the group with strong customer growth in all of it operating territories.
The firm said its German and Austrian businesses experienced record growth in the period while its UK and Irish operation had enjoyed the highest uplift in new customer numbers in more than a decade in the third quarter of the year.
Total group revenues on an adjusted like-for-like basis for the nine-month period were 5% ahead of 2014 at £8.45bn while group operating profits jumped 20% to £1.02bn.
The group, which has a significant operations base in Scotland including contact centres at Dunfermline and at Livingston, said it had signed up a net 242,000 new customers in the third quarter.
The figure is almost 70% ahead of that achieved a year earlier and increased the core customer base to more than 20.8 million.
Paid-for subscription products grew by one million during Q3, taking total product sales to 3.8m for the year to date.
In its television arm, the group said Fortitude had attracted an audience of 2.7m viewers and had become Sky Atlantic’s most successful show for its distribution business, with sales into 100 territories internationally.
In outside content, the premiere on Sky of Game of Thrones attracted an audience of more than 1.5m, a 30% uplift on the previous series.
The firm’s sports division also had a strong period and tied up a new English Premier League broadcast rights deal through to season 2018/19.
While performance across the business was improved, costs also grew by 3% to £7.42bn.
The figure, which remained below the rate of revenue growth, was pushed northwards by costs associated with screening the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles in Perthshire last autumn and the group’s Cricket World Cup coverage.
However, group chief executive Jeremy Darroch was upbeat about the company’s prospects.
“By continuing the strong operating momentum of the first half, we have grown revenues by 5% and operating profit by 20% over the nine months,” he said.
“The UK and Ireland delivered a stand-out performance, reporting both the highest customer growth and lowest churn for 11 years.”
Shares in Sky closed the day up 53.66 at 1,105.66.