Sky edges full-year profit forecasts with record demand

LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Record (LSE: REC.L - news) demand for entertainment and broadband in Britain, Germany and Austria helped European pay-TV group Sky (LSE: BSY.L - news) to post a slightly better-than-expected 18 percent jump in full-year operating profit on Wednesday.

Sky, which formed from the combination of Britain's BSkyB, Sky Deutschland (Other OTC: SKDTF - news) and Sky Italia to serve 20 million customers in Europe, said the group had seen its highest organic customer growth for 11 years in Britain and Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) , and its highest ever customer growth in Germany and Austria.

Its customer base in Italy remained stable after three years of negative growth.

Sky posted full-year operating profit of 1.4 billion pounds ($2.18 billion), slightly ahead of a consensus of 1.3 billion pounds, off revenue up 5 percent to an as expected 11.3 billion pounds.

($1 = 0.6409 pounds) (Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Neil Maidment)