Absorbing game

We wake to a certain nervousness around Sky's outlets other than sport. The deal, for 126 live broadcasts of Premier League games for each of the next three seasons, works out at £11m per match. Sky has 15.8 million subscribers in the UK - 11.7m are private homes, and it's estimated that 8m pay for Sky Sports.  The average spend across all subcribers is £564 a year, with domestic customers averaging something over £500.

At £1.4bn a year, the deal commits 16% of the Sky group's current revenues, including Germany and Italy. The Group Director of Corporate Affairs, Graham McWilliam tweeted thus...

PL rights more expensive, but have clear plan to absorb cost and continue to grow in line with expectations
— Graham McWilliam (@grahammcwilliam) February 10, 2015

Staff at Osterley will be keen to understand the balance between "absorbing" cost and growth.