LONDON -(Dow Jones)- British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC (BSY.LN) Chief Executive Jeremy Darroch said Friday the group's Sky pay television service has brought competition to the television industry following businessman Richard Branson's attack on the group's dominance in pay TV.
BSkyB will stay focused on the market place and delivering for customers, he told reporters on a conference call.
In the Financial Times newspaper Friday, Branson called for Sky's dominance in pay TV to be curbed. Branson has a minority stake in Virgin Media, which competes against Sky.
In the U.K, "the general consumer environment really hasn't changed much in the first quarter of our financial year versus the early summer," Darroch said.
"I think its an environment where people are increasingly careful about where they spend their money, and I don't see that changing," he added.
BSkyB Friday reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results, underpinned by strong consumer demand for pay-TV, Internet and phones services.
News Corp. (NWS), which owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire, holds about a 39% stake in BSkyB.
--By Lilly Vitorovich, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-0-207 842 9290; lilly.vitorovich@dowjones.com