Broadcaster Sky has reported a 9%
fall in operating profits after paying more for broadcast rights to
Premier League football matches.
However, Sky said that its financial performance had been "good".
Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox owns 39% of the company. Late last year, it offered to buy out the remaining 61% of the business.
Fox needs regulatory approval for the $14.6bn offer in both the UK and Europe, where it does about a third of its business.
Sky has 22 million customers in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria.
Chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: "In a year in which we are absorbing significantly higher programming costs, as a result of the step up in Premier League costs, our financial performance has been good."
Operating profit was £65m lower on the year before, even though it absorbed an additional £314m of Premier League costs in the period.
The company said it had added more than 500,000 new customers.
Read more
