BSkyB 'rising above gloom on High Street'

Jeremy Darroch, who took over from James Murdoch as chief executive two months ago, said: "Our performance over the last six months has been very strong. There is every indication that if the economy is entering something of slowdown entertainment in the home becomes ever more important because people are choosing to stay in rather than go out."

Sky signed up 167,000 net new subscribers in the last three months of 2007, which was marginally lower than some analysts had expected. But Darroch said the group is on target to meet City forecasts this year and is well on its way to hitting its target of 10 million subscribers by the end of this decade. It currently has 8.83 million.

Darroch also said Sky will take the full four weeks it has been given to decide whether to appeal against the Government's order to cut its stake in ITV from 17.9% to below 7.5%. "We haven't made our minds up yet," he said.

Sky today confirmed a £343 million writedown on the cost of holding that stake for more than a year.

Darroch said he had "absolutely no comment" to make on whether Sky has had any approaches for its stake amid talk of a private-equity bid for ITV.

Sky's first-half figures were better than most analysts had forecast, with revenues up 11% at £2.46billion and adjusted operating profit down from £395 million to £307 million.

The reduction includes £103million spent on broadband, £30 million less from dropping Sky basic channels on Virgin and the £50million extra cost for Premiership matches. Churn, the rate at which subscribers move on, fell to its lowest for three years at 10%.

Darroch was particularly pleased with the 16% growth in Sky+, the personal video recorder, now in more than a third of customer homes. He said more new customers were taking premium packages such as Sky+ and broadband.

The interim dividend goes up by 8% to 7.1p.