UK PVR watch

BSkyB reported results today, and they look pretty decent, though not stunning beyond stronger-than-expected subscriber growth. Churn is up, and it looks like the proportion of top tier subs has contracted somewhat. On a positive note, Sky added 128k Sky+ PVR subscribers, and said that fully one third of those were complete newcomers to Sky. That's c.43k, or nearly half of total net adds for the quarter, a significantly better contribution than in the previous quarter. Sky+ households now account for fully 10% of the customer base. So far it looks like the UK, as an early adopter of PVRs relative to the rest of Europe, is proving the case for PVRs as a driver of subscriber growth. What's going to be really interesting to watch is the impact PVRs have on UK cable's fortunes later this year (this little baby has a 160GB drive, three tuners [Sky+ has two] and claims forward-compatibility with HDTV).