Sky chief plans new initiatives to combat churn

Sky chief James Murdoch is planning a number of new initiatives to help bring down churn.

In the company's first quarter results, announced earlier today, the broadcaster reported a churn rate of 11.7%, up from 10.5% year-on-year.

Murdoch cited a number of reasons for the rise, including the economic climate, increased competition and the wide-ranging price rises implemented in September.

"A number of initiatives are underway," he told investors, "such as retention marketing, stemming from the reactive work we do in the call centres - trying to talk them round, get them the right packages, etc.."

Murdoch is confident that the company's goals - 8m subscribers by the end of the year, 10m by 2010 and a churn of 10% - still remain "very achievable" and would not rule out more price rises in future.

"As we continue to improve the product we think there is scope for pricing movement," he added. "We'd really like to see our pricing strategy evolve in a more nuance way. We will be launching higher price packaging for things like HD in the next year but also lower price packaging as well."