BSkyB says Murdoch remains chairman as annual profits surge

[1]

British pay-TV giant BSkyB said on Friday that James Murdoch will remain chairman despite the phone-hacking row at main shareholder News Corp., as the broadcaster revealed a 23-per cent jump in profits.

The firm also announced a £750-million ($1.2-billion, 854-million-euro) share buyback and hiked its shareholder dividend to calm the waters after the scandal forced Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. this month to scrap a takeover bid for BSkyB.

The crisis had sparked calls for Rupert's son James to resign the chairmanship of BSkyB, but the company's board gave him their unanimous support at a meeting late on Thursday.

"Following the withdrawal of the News Corporation proposal, the board will return to normal processes. James Murdoch remains chairman," BSkyB said in an annual results statement Friday.

Operating profits soared to £1.073 billion in the 12 months to June, compared with £872 million in the group's previous financial year, BSkyB said in the statement. That was in line with market expectations.

BSkyB, which broadcasts live English Premier League football and blockbuster movies, added that it now has 10.3 million household subscribers, a proportion of whom pay monthly fees to access its Internet broadband and telephone services.

"This has been a year of outstanding operational and financial results for Sky," said James Murdoch in the statement.

"It is to the credit of Sky's first-class management team that the company has continued to deliver throughout the offer period that ended earlier this month.

He added: "We are pleased to announce both a 20 percent increase in the ordinary dividend and our intention to return £750 million to shareholders through a share buy-back programme."

It ramped up its shareholder dividend by a fifth to 23.28 pence per share.

The scandal erupted earlier this month when it emerged that the News of the World, News Corp.'s market-leading British Sunday tabloid newspaper, had hacked the voicemail messages of murdered 13-year-old schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

Rupert Murdoch shut down the paper on July 7 but faced with intense political and public pressure News Corp. called off its bid for the 61 percent of BSkyB shares that it did not already own on July 13.

News Corp. had in June 2010 bid £7.8 billion ($12.5 billion, 8.6 billion euros) for the 60.9 percent of BSkyB it did not already own. But BSkyB rejected the 700-pence-per-share offer.

But the scandal has refused to go away and the pressure remains on News Corp., and on James Murdoch in particular.

A lawmaker is pressing for James Murdoch to be recalled by a parliamentary committee in front of which he and his father answered questions on the hacking scandal -- and at which Rupert Murdoch was splattered with a foam pie.

Two former News of the World executives have accused James Murdoch of misleading the committee over how much he knew about the extent of hacking at the paper when he authorised a key payout to a victim in 2008.

The BSkyB chairman -- who is also number three at News Corp. and head of its European and Asian activities, as well as chairman of its British newspaper arm News International -- says he stands by his testimony.

A judge-led inquiry into the scandal formally opened on Thursday in Britain.

Just hours later fresh allegations emerged that an investigator blamed for much of the News of the World hacking had targeted the mother of a second murdered girl, on whose behalf the paper had campaigned.

Sara Payne, the mother of eight-year-old Sarah Payne who was killed by a paedophile in 2000, was "absolutely devastated" after police told her that her voicemail might have been hacked by the paper.