BSkyB, which earlier this week announced plans to end its nightly Irish news bulletins, says it has added 14,000 new customers in the Republic in the three months to the end of September. This is an increase of 3.3 per cent over the previous quarter.

One in three families in Britain and Ireland now has Sky television.

Releasing its financial results for its first quarter yesterday, the company said demand remained strong for its products and services in the Republic.

Subscribers to Sky digital reached 441,000 at September 30th, 2006, representing a net increase of 14,000 in the quarter. The number of net customer additions was 55 per cent higher than in the three months to September 2005, Sky said.

However, across Britain and Ireland, the churn rate - the number of customers leaving the broadcaster - increased marginally to almost 12 per cent of the subscriber base. The company declined to give a departure rate for the Republic.

Some subscribers may have specifically signed up for live Ryder Cup coverage - which Sky had exclusively - but some of this group may later cancel their subscription.

Average revenue per user also declined, slipping 1.2 per cent to £385 (€576).

Across Britain and Ireland, the total number of digital satellite subscribers was 8.3 million, an increase of 3.8 per cent on the previous quarter - the highest first-quarter growth rate for three years. Of those, almost 1.7 million people subscribe to Sky+.

Delia Bushell, managing director of Sky Ireland, attributed the increases to innovative additions such as the Ryder Cup on standard television, high-definition television (HDTV), broadband and mobile.

In July, BSkyB announced plans to launch a broadband service. As of the end of October, about 1 million customers had registered their interest and orders had been received from 113,000.

Revenue increased 11 per cent to £1.1 billion (€1.64 billion) during the quarter from the year-earlier period, while pre-tax profit dropped 17 per cent to £116 million (€ 173 million).