TORONTO – Internet-based television provider JumpTV reported a second-quarter loss of $11.5 million, nearly doubling the $6.5 million loss it reported last year.
JumpTV subscriptions also increased 128 percent from 30,000 to 68,500 as of June 30. The company expanded its client base in its sports business by adding new partners, incremental functionality and other technology solutions.
"In our sports business, we broadened our client base by adding new teams and leagues as partners and, at the same time, we increased the depth of many of our existing relationships by adding incremental functionality and other technology solutions to their online offerings," said chairman Scott Paterson in a statement.
"In our international business, we took steps with respect to people and other resources to position our strongest areas of content aggregation – Arabic, South Asian, Hispanic and Caribbean – to be re-energized in the context of our new business plan which will unfold as a result of our planned merger with NeuLion."
In June JumpTV rejected a takeover bid from MySpace founder Brad Greenspan and instead announced a planned merger with NeuLion Inc., a Plainview, New York-based end-to-end IPTV service provider of live and on-demand sports, international and religious programming over the Internet and through set top boxes to the television. JumpTV says the merger is on track to close on October 1st subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
"We are very excited about our pending merger and believe that the JumpTV/NeuLion combination will be able to offer our sports and international content partners best-in-class technology and services," says Paterson.
JumpTV is focused on soccer, cycling and U.S. college sports, while NeuLion has rights to National Hockey League games and the International Fight League. NeuLion is headed by billionaire software developer Charles Wang, who co-founded Computer Associates Inc. in the 1970s and owns various New York sports franchises.
