British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) has spent £127 million (€182 million) on its controversial share buy-back plan, representing 22.8 million shares or a little more than 1 per cent of the shares in issue before the programme began.

Europe's largest pay-television group obtained shareholder approval to buy back up to 5 per cent of its shares at its annual meeting in November. However, the proposal proved controversial, with 18 per cent of those voting or 7.88 per cent of the shares in issue, rejecting it.

Some institutional investors had expressed concerns that it could allow Mr Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to take "creeping control" of the company. After the buy-back is completed, News Corporation's stake in BSkyB will rise automatically from 35 to 37 per cent.

The repurchases, between November 16th and December 20th, have been at prices ranging from 545¾p and 571¼p. The largest transaction was on December 16th, with 2.87 million shares repurchased for £15.9 million. The group has now put the buy-back on hold because it is in a close period ahead of its interim results on February 2nd. The results will include keenly-anticipated data for trading during the Christmas quarter.

Consensus estimates for BSkyB's net subscriber additions in the quarter to December 31st are about 140,000.

However, the range is wide, with some analysts forecasting more than 200,000, while Man Securities said yesterday net additions could be as low as 104,000 based on retail tracking data for October and November.

The satellite group is targeting 8 million subscribers by the end of this year, after adding 353,000 net new subscribers to reach 7.42 million.

It has launched a huge marketing effort to help it reach that target.