Today from Sydney. My name is Hannah Hollis. I'm a journalist at Fox Sports. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to the Foxtel Group Strategy Day. If you're tuning in from Asia, the U.S., or even here in Australia, this vision needs no introduction. As I stand on the shore of Sydney Harbor in Kirribilli, I'd like to recognize that this is the land of the Cammeraygal people. The Foxtel Group recognizes the traditional owners and custodians of the land from wherever you are tuning in from right around the country. We also recognize the continuing connection to the land, to the waterways, and to the community. We recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as we pay our respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
Over the next 90 minutes, we're going to share with you an in-depth look at today's streaming-led Foxtel Group. For the fund managers and analysts that are joining us, we have set aside time for you at the end to ask your questions. You'll be able to submit those using the chat function on the right of your screen. To kick things off, we'll begin by hearing from the Foxtel Group's two shareholders, News Corp and Telstra. It is my pleasure to now introduce to you News Corp's Chief Executive, Robert Thomson.
Thank you, Hannah. Welcome to what will surely be an engaging, enlightening event. This is the first time we have held a Strategy Day for the Foxtel Group since the coalescing of Foxtel and Fox Sports Australia in April 2018. That moment was the beginning of a pronounced, profound change in the company's fortune. Foxtel was a one-product pay TV and sports production company. It was more limited in reach and in ambition. Over the past three years, our team, led by Siobhan McKenna and Patrick Delany, have transformed the business, creating Australia's most dynamic streaming company. The narrative of the Foxtel Group and the prospects of the company have been transformed. Our emphasis on growth through streaming, through improved, compelling interfaces, and on securing long-term valuable sports and entertainment rights, has put the company on a distinctly upward trajectory. The business is surging.
As of June 30, 2021, paying Foxtel subscribers were 40% higher year-over-year. Fiscal year revenue rose by 10%, and EBITDA growth was 11% in US dollars for the subscription video services segment. There was a tangible acceleration in growth in the fourth quarter when segment revenue surged 33%, driven by the rapid expansion of streaming products and due in part to auspicious currency fluctuations. The surge in streaming is successfully repurposing and monetizing existing rights, and the signs of success were particularly evident in the fourth quarter of our fiscal year 2021, when the number of total paying streaming subscribers was 155% higher than at the same time last year. As you can see, we are proud of the exponential evolution of Kayo and BINGE, their world-class content, their cutting-edge technology, and their empathetic interfaces.
We have decidedly debunked the myth that only a small proportion of the Australian population will pay for programming, and we now have a large and fast-growing audience, combined with the potential for significant price elasticity for those streaming products. The time has come to articulate the Foxtel Group story and to make clearer the value and the potential of the company. There is a new narrative at Foxtel. It is a story of rejuvenation, of resurgence, and of renaissance. Now, let me pass the platform to our partner, Andy Penn, the Chief Executive Officer of Telstra.
Thank you, Robert. Thank you for your continued partnership. Thank you also to everyone who has made the time to join this briefing today. After a significant transformation over the last three years, Foxtel today is incredibly well-positioned for the future. Its positioning and its performance elevate our strategy at Telstra to continue to commit our support to Foxtel as a long-term investor and partner following the restructure of our investment in 2018. Since Foxtel and Fox Sports were brought together in 2018, the business has completely transformed itself to become a technology-led streaming company. Today, Foxtel is not the company that you think you know. Since 2018, it's achieved significant growth in streaming, and as you heard from Robert, Kayo and BINGE have recorded exceptional subscriber growth.
The team have also worked hard to stabilize and to strengthen the Foxtel set-top box business by focusing on managing revenues and repositioning it as a premium service. With the launch of iQ5, that service will also be built around the streaming future. There has also been a significant workforce transformation at Foxtel as part of right-sizing the company's cost base. The proof points are there in the most recent financial results, where subscriber numbers grew strongly, revenue stabilized, and the business put in a very positive cash flow performance. Telstra and Foxtel have had a long and very rewarding partnership.
We are one of Foxtel's biggest channels to market, and Foxtel's content and services are incredibly important to our customers and help us differentiate our telecommunications services. We're excited about Foxtel's future and our continued partnership, and I believe the time is right now to give you a deeper insight into the future of the company that we see. I want to join Robert in commending Patrick and the whole of the team at Foxtel on a job very well done in turning around the business. Let me now pass over to Patrick, Foxtel Group's CEO, to start today's presentation. Thank you.
Thanks, Robert and Andy, and welcome. Today, Foxtel's management team is pleased to tell you about our transformation journey and our growth strategy. We're going to hear from Julian Ogrin, the CEO of Kayo and BINGE; Les Wigan, our Head of Technology; Hilary Perchard, the Head of Foxtel Retail; Amanda Laing, our Head of Content; and Stuart Hutton, our CFO. Our Foxtel customers know and love us. We've been around for 20 years, now we're much more than that. We have single-genre streaming services, including Kayo and BINGE. We're Australia's biggest sports producer, Fox Sports. We have an ever-growing ad sales business with Foxtel Media. Today, we are the Foxtel Group, a consumer-focused, IP-led business with rapidly transforming cost base. The Foxtel Group now has 4 million total subscribers. We've added 1 million of those in the past 12 months. Our streaming products are driving this growth.
On this chart, on the left-hand side, you'll see that in 2016, 8% of subscribers came from streaming, whereas you can see on the right-hand side, over 50% now come from streaming. Launching new streaming products has allowed us to target customers we previously couldn't reach through cable or satellite or, people that maybe couldn't afford Foxtel. Somewhat uniquely, Foxtel has this opportunity because of low penetration rates compared to other places like the U.S. and U.K., where we see 50% or higher. Nearly half of Australian households with subscription television have a Foxtel Group product. To deliver our world-class product, we build a platform that's scalable, delivers cost efficiency, and is capable of being used across all Foxtel Group products. We are now the disruptor of the Australian media industry with Kayo, BINGE, and our new Foxtel iQ.
You might notice on this chart there's a new product, another disruptor. I'll leave Julian Ogrin to tell you more about that. Our additional subscriber reach is delivering revenue growth and ad sales as well, and our tech stack is allowing us to serve targeted digital ads. There's more to growth to come from that. As a media business, of course, we sell content, and we are the long-term partner of choice for local and international suppliers, whether it's sport, entertainment, lifestyle, or news. All of this momentum was delivered with a clear three-pillar strategy. First, to grow through streaming. Second, to strengthen Foxtel. Third, to win with world-class content and technology. Let me take you through it in a bit more detail. First, we cover growth through streaming. We are now at 2.1 million streaming subscribers and continuing to grow.
This gives us a new platform to showcase and to monetize our content. We started with Foxtel Go and Now, we've rapidly accelerated with Kayo and BINGE. This has resulted in a material shift in our revenue profile. Our streaming revenue has more than doubled to AUD 360 million in the last 2 years. We are confident there's more growth to come in streaming. Consumer habits have changed. The shift to digital has transformed the way in which we all watch TV. Right now, three-quarters of Australian homes have an SVOD service. Independent research indicates this is going to grow to 85% by the end of FY 2025, the number of SVOD services per household will grow as well. The Foxtel Group is strongly positioned to capture the growth of streaming.
The range of products and price points in our ecosystem is built to suit a broad range of subscribers, from premium aggregation with the Foxtel product to distinct single-genre streaming services like Kayo and BINGE. The shift to digital also brings cost advantages to the Foxtel Group. Stuart will talk to that a little later. This growth of Kayo and BINGE has materially shifted our revenue mix, too, especially over the past 12 months. Our streaming revenue has grown. Our focus on customer lifetime value in the Foxtel residential business has slowed its decline. This is particularly evident in Q4, where streaming revenue effectively backfilled lost Foxtel revenue. This brings me to pillar 2, strengthening Foxtel. Our loyal high-value subscribers enjoy the Foxtel product, and they're willing to pay a bit more to have the convenience of everything in one place.
This is reflected in rising ARPU over the past four quarters. On the left-hand side of this chart, you can see that 89% of our subscribers pay more than AUD 50 per month. That's more than our entry package. On the right-hand side, you can see the loyalty of the base. Nearly 90% of subscribers have been with us for more than three years, and nearly 60% for over eight. The third pillar of our strategy has two parts, great content and the best technology. Let's have a look at content first. Our diverse range of longstanding content partners value the reach we're delivering through our new product ecosystem. We're able to deliver the right content on the right product for the right subscriber. There's no better illustration of this than the sports landscape, where we are the local partner of choice for Australian and international sport.
We have partnerships with Australia's most popular sports, the AFL, NRL, Cricket, and Supercars. We're investing in local growth sports, including netball and local basketball, and we have the best of international sports like F1 and the Masters, U.S. sports through ESPN, and European sports through beIN. The second part of pillar 3 is technology. We've become a tech-led company, whether it's through single-genre streaming services, our new plug-and-play iQ5, ad tech that serves targeted ads to our subscribers, and the new CRM and MarTech that enables our data-led subscriber strategy. It's all built on a very scalable core. Les Wigan will talk to you about this. Bringing it all together, the Foxtel Group has 3-year ambitions. They are, first, to reach 5 million+ subscribers. Second, to hit AUD 3 billion of revenue with continued opportunity for margin expansion.
Third, to achieve a 5% CapEx to revenue ratio, which will continue our strong cash performance momentum. Our ambitions will be achieved by adhering to the strategy I've articulated today and leveraging what we've built. To grow through streaming, we've got plenty of upside in existing products, and we'll launch more. To continue to strengthen Foxtel, we'll be offering existing customers even more value while using technology to reduce cost to serve. We will broaden and deepen our content relationships and continue to transform costs through technology. Speaking of content, let's hear from some of our longstanding sports partners.
The Foxtel Group and the AFL have been decades-long partners. It's a true partnership. It's not just the tenure that's important. It's we're actual partners in the growth of the game.
Oh, yes. Have a look at the celebrations.
The Foxtel Group's push into streaming and into color shows around our game are a couple of areas where they have gone above and beyond the contract to tell a story about our game and to, you know, the result is the growth in our game. It's a great partnership, the Foxtel Group, with us.
This is absolutely superb.
The media landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years, and only the ones that are proactive, and innovative will survive, and Foxtel is one of those groups.
There it is, David Warner. Century 22.
You know, our partnership since 2018, we've just seen it grow and expand. They've been instrumental in growing the breadth of the audience, of diversity of our audience. I can genuinely say that Foxtel are a strategic growth partner of cricket.
We are close to signing the England v Melbourne Storm tomorrow. When COVID hit, it was a pretty dramatic situation for all of us, and thanks to Delany and the Foxtel Group have been incredible. They had their own challenges, and we had our moments, but I think we both we've had open conversations about what would work for both of us.
The Foxtel Group were integral to us restarting. Without their support, without their backing, we would never have done it. It was a risk, and they backed us, because that's what they are. They're risk-takers. You know, they're. In business, if you don't take risks, you don't succeed. It's all about innovation. I'll give you one example. Last year, we unfortunately, could have no crowds. You know, just little things make so much difference. You know, the Foxtel Group and the expertise they have, they reduced the camera angles, so you could only see the field, so you couldn't see the empty grandstand. Other organizations didn't do that, and it just, it had no atmosphere. Then to bring in a crowd noise, you wouldn't have known that we're in a pandemic.
They look at doing things better at all times. They try to stay ahead of the game at all times. If they don't do that, we wouldn't be sitting here today. They're so passionate and so proud about getting the fans closer to the action, whether that's, you know, the Flying Fox, Rover. There's just so many innovations that are actually bringing people closer to the action, which, what's more than that? It unites us. It makes us friends. It causes us to have arguments, debate. Without it, when we went without it, we didn't realize how good it was.
Our game's performing, and its partnership with the Foxtel Group has been a key thing for so many Australians to get through this. You know, to rely on their teams, their tribes coming out, produced beautifully and buying into the narrative of the season has given people something to distract themselves on the weekends and many times in the last 2 years on weeknights. I think it's been a core stabilizing force for so many Australians.
Thank you to Gill, Peter, and Nick. It's great to hear such positive feedback from our sports partners. Now we're going to go a little deeper into each element of the strategy. I'd like to introduce Julian Ogrin, the CEO of Kayo and BINGE. Julian's going to step through how we are growing through streaming. Julian.
Thanks, Patrick. What I'd like to do today is unpack how we use startup thinking to create a scalable streaming growth engine for Foxtel Group. We've built three products in 3 years, and they're delivering rapid growth in subscribers and revenue. The first of these products was Kayo. For those who aren't familiar with Kayo, it's a live and on-demand streaming service featuring over 50 sports. We launched Kayo in November 2018, our first single-genre streaming business. It started growing by word of mouth. Today, it's the most popular sports streaming product in the country. Let me start by saying not all streaming services are built equal. Our technology platform was built specifically for live sports, with low latency and the ability to serve very high numbers of concurrent viewers.
It serves us incredibly well. We've had strong subscriber growth since launch, reaching 1.1 million total subscribers at the end of June. Our secret sauce is our product offering. Over 50 Australian and international sports, including all of the big ones, AFL, NRL, cricket, Supercars, Formula 1, golf, and through ESPN, the NBA and NFL. The depth of our year-round calendar allows casual fans and fanatics to be deeply engaged with the product. It reduces seasonal churn. We've created opportunities for unique sports partnerships by bringing select games in front of the paywall. The Kayo product itself is unlike anything available in Australia. We've designed user experience to reflect the best features of streaming services across all categories. It means subscribers are familiar with the product features, hero carousels, tiles, and more. They love it.
While Kayo is available on phone, tablet, computer, and TV, 68% of viewing is on the big screen. It's not a companion app, it's their main product. Secondly, it's opened up the Foxtel Group's sports portfolio and the quality of Foxtel's production to a whole new sector of Australians, allowing us to fully monetize our investment in sports. Whereas subscribers may be familiar with how to operate the product, what stands out are Kayo's unique features. Multi-screen, up to four different sports at once, key moments, Kayo Minis, where we package up highlights within 15 minutes of the final whistle. These drive significant next-day viewership, particularly of sports that aren't in our time zone. These have been such successful innovations, we're using them in other streaming products and other parts of the business. Kayo pricing and packaging recognizes the way our subscribers consume our product.
Multiple screens allow for parallel accounts and streaming. Kayo Freebies, launched in February, is both a subscriber funnel and a strategy to keep paused subscribers engaged. It's also allowed us to offer our sports partners, such as Netball Australia, a new platform with Australia's high internet penetration, providing accessibility that's on par with free-to-air television. We have other growth options. For example, there's been growth in our pay-per-view boxing and UFC. We've also refined Kayo's sales strategy with low-cost acquisition marketing and promotional partners who help us drive brand awareness and acquisition. With a massive base of current and sports users, we can continue to drive low CPAs as we effectively target sports fans and reactivate them at virtually no cost. With 1.1 million total subscribers as of mid-June, we are now well-established, but we believe there is still plenty of room for growth.
There's an opportunity for further penetration as fans seek out the quality of sports production and commentary, and we ride the streaming wave as consumers increasingly choose SVOD services. As you'd expect, we do see some seasonality with Kayo, given the popularity of winter sports in Australia. This becomes a matter of how you manage the customer life cycle, as we find many subscribers don't cancel, they pause and they reactivate. Having had 3 years of experience, we're confident of a big summer of cricket ahead with The Ashes, just as we saw with last year's India tour, along with the NRL and the rest of our sports calendar. The bottom line is, if Kayo continues to grow, we've seen strong revenue growth in 2021 financial year, up 87% on 2020. Turning to subscriber engagement, they really do take advantage of the 50+ sports we offer.
Kayo subscribers don't just watch one or two sports. 62% watch three or more, and 23% watch more than eight sports. That's an important differentiator, it makes us premium and sees our subscribers stick with us year-round, compared to the single-sport streaming offerings. Finally, Kayo's marketing really embodies that engagement. Our most recent campaign is Sport Lives Here. Moving into the summer, we've refreshed it to feature Cricket Lives Here as we go to a strong season including the Cricket World Cup and The Ashes. Turning to BINGE, we launched this product in May last year, and it's the home of over 10,000 hours of drama, lifestyle, and movies. It's been a heck of a ride. BINGE was built on the same scalable tech stack as Kayo, so we were able to take advantage of all the learnings from Kayo, including how we use data to engage subscribers.
The reaction has been incredible. We have already reached nearly 830,000 subscribers at the end of June, and we're continuing to grow, bringing new subscribers and new revenue to the Foxtel Group. The product itself brings that same best-in-class familiarity of an entertainment streaming service. We're continuing to evolve our personalization and recommendation engine, as well as a pipeline of product innovation. The BINGE product suite is also designed around account viewing. It's available on a variety of devices and caters to the way subscribers want to view it, whether it's on a TV, laptop, tablet, or mobile. We find that within an account, subscribers can further watch the different types of screens. Think of mom and dad watching it on the TV and the daughter streaming on her laptop. The BINGE sales strategy is content-led.
We featured tent-pole mass-market hits with our out-of-home and big place marketing, supported by performance-driven, audience-targeted campaigns. Again, using strong promotional partners. Like Kayo, we use performance-based marketing and review CPAs daily and adjust accordingly. That's led to BINGE growth that's been like a freight train. We don't get Kayo seasonality. Acquisition is driven by consistent release of tent-pole shows with a deep library that appeals to a wide range of subscribers. Importantly, subscriber growth also translates into consistent revenue growth, which is now over 4x higher than the launch quarter. An important behavior we see with subscribers is they come for the new releases, they stay for the library. When we market tent-pole shows like "Vigil" or "The Undoing," we see rapid subscriber acquisition.
What we are then seeing is high retention rates due to the depth of content from a variety of studio partners, including our own group originals. This behavior plays out in the data. 56% of BINGE subscribers watch three or more series in a month, and 24% watch more than eight. Finally, the launch of Flash, our next streaming business, is just around the corner. It's a demonstration that we can keep creating single-genre streaming products. By doing this, we can reach more and more Australians as streaming services become today's go-to source of high-quality entertainment and information. Flash is the first of its kind. It's a news aggregation service, live and on-demand. It will feature a breadth of global and local partners offering subscribers a genuine diversity of opinion and perspective and allowing them to dive deep into the news.
Importantly, Flash is built on the same streaming platform as Kayo and BINGE, allowing us to go to market quickly and efficiently. I don't want to reveal everything about this product today, but you might be interested to know that the insights we have about the way viewers consume sport also apply to news. Personalization, split screen, minis, or as we call them in Flash, FlashPoints. Finally, I want to emphasize that this product is all about diverse sources, whether you want Australian or international news. Whether your politics are progressive, in the center, or conservative, whether your interest is in politics or business, U.S. or U.K. news, Flash brings it all together. It's an exciting product that'll open up another new growth opportunity for us, and it launches in the next few weeks.
Before I pass you to Les Wigan, our Chief Technology and Operations Officer, let's have a quick look at Flash.
The significance of this moment cannot be underestimated.
Thousands of cars of Beirut are in ruins tonight.
All of this gone.
We don't know where the virus is lurking.
I can see that ray of light.
Getting people vaccinated.
Across all of our supermarkets.
Thanks, Julian. You just heard about the growth our streaming products are creating. This doesn't happen without a technology strategy that is based on global best practice. It's built to be scalable and can support subscriber growth at low cost. It's the foundation of everything we do. It underpins our growth and our ability to innovate, and will drive the next stage of our transformation. Let me start by saying our technology strategy is based on a long-term vision. In 2018, we started by thinking about where we wanted to end. We built a greenfield streaming-focused technology stack to support all of our new OTT products. We built Kayo on this stack in 2018, followed by BINGE in 2020, Kayo Freebies early this year, and Flash, which will launch in the coming weeks.
Soon, our Foxtel OTT products, Foxtel Now and Go, will be also migrated to this technology stack. The stack has three important features: it's scalable, it's reliable, and it puts the customer at the center. First, scalability. Our strategy was always to have one streaming platform that supports multiple products and a growing subscriber base. What this means in a practical sense is that as we continue to innovate the platform, the innovation is applied to all products on that platform. We've checked this will deliver significant efficiencies. We've also architected this technology stack to be highly scalable in a cost-effective way across monitoring capabilities, AI, and cloud-based operations, which is important for a fast-growing subscriber base. This has taken us from our first day of customers back in 2018 to peak this year, where we've had around 65,000 customers sign up in a single day. There's reliability.
The technology stack can support a high volume of subscribers and content with a proven record of performance. To bring this to life, here are a couple of interesting stats. For Kayo, we've had as many as 37 live and current sports being streamed at a single time. We typically support over 300 live events over the course of a week, and we've had a peak of 420 live events in a given week. All of this, sub-10-second latency. I know this isn't a tech audience, and our technologists like to stay humble, but this is a performance that's right up there globally. We've also optimized the platform for redundancy, including a multi-CDN approach. Our aim is best-in-class reliability so that our customers are able to stream their entertainment without any disruptions. Lastly, customer centricity.
The technology stack is built with the customer at the center of everything we do, which is critical for two reasons. First, for our customers, the experience is simple and visually focused. This makes for easy sign-up and quick self-service. 94% of our Kayo and BINGE customers are able to self-manage sign-up and help without needing to contact us. Second, the business side. We have a single view of the customer across all products that's verified when a customer signs up. This drives our advertising reach and our capabilities across the Foxtel Group. We have a strong track record of leveraging these world-class streaming technology stacks over the past 3 or 4 years. However, there is more to do. Over the next 2 years, we are investing in four strategic technology projects to unlock the next wave of transformation and efficiency for the Foxtel Group. This is a plan.
Each of these projects are already underway. Let me step you through each one of them. First, we are converging our streaming and technology stack and operations. This project will enhance the Foxtel Now and Go products by using technology stacks that I spoke about earlier. The benefits are significant. A single technology stack reduces duplication and overhead. More importantly, our Foxtel streaming customers will get the world-class streaming platform we have spent the last two years developing for Kayo, BINGE, and Flash. This project also extends to our IP-enabled set-top boxes. Our new iQ5s and latest generation iQ4s, which are receiving a software upgrade to be fully IP-enabled. Second, we are growing our audience and our targeted advertising capability. Growth in subscribers to our digital products translates to growth in our advertising audience reach.
When you overlay the fact that we have validated subscriber information and profiles, and we know what our customers are watching on our platforms, this allows us to be more targeted in how we digitally deliver ads. We're already seeing this deliver high ROI for advertising partners, all done in a brand safe, premium video environment. Third, we're digitizing Foxtel's customer management and marketing systems. This investment is focused on replacing our legacy customer and marketing systems that underpin the Foxtel products. Again, we are leveraging the capability we already built for our OTT products. We expect to see significant benefits from this project in our customer servicing, engagement marketing, and retention areas, both from a customer perspective with more self-service and from a business perspective with lower cost to serve. Finally, we're in the process of merging and modernizing our broadcast infrastructure.
As both an aggregator and creator of content, there's quite a bit of technology that sits behind the scenes to organize and distribute content to phones, connected TVs, and set-top boxes. This project is merging our existing OTT infrastructure and broadcast infrastructure, leveraging cloud-based solutions. Clearly, this delivers operational efficiencies. It also improves the resilience of our operations, which is critical, particularly with a large growing subscriber base. In closing, let me leave you with three key messages about technology at the Foxtel Group. First, we have built a highly scalable, reliable, customer-centric streaming technology stack. It's the future backbone of all IP delivery across the group. Second, we are well on our way to modernizing existing platforms and systems that support our core Foxtel products. We expect this to deliver significant financial efficiencies and improved customer experience.
Finally, we have a team that has a proven track record of delivering. I'm confident we will continue to do so across large projects and existing roadmaps that we have underway today. Before I hand over to Hilary Perchard, to talk about Foxtel, I'd like to leave you with a look at the latest symbol of how we deliver outstanding technology projects, the newly launched iQ5. This new set-top box is IP-led, plug-and-play, delivers 4K sports and entertainment streaming, all at a lower cost than our previous set-top boxes. It's fundamental to our strategy of migrating Foxtel customers off cable and supporting digital advertising growth. Let's take a look.
Thank you, Les. Over the past few years, we have been focusing the Foxtel business on our highest quality customers. Our strategy has been to allow our more price-sensitive customers to move to streaming, where they are better served by our single-genre streamers and their associated lower cost to serve. As a result, we now have a core base of 1.6 million premium customers, where the majority are high revenue, high value, and long tenure. Our plan now is to continue to provide those customers with a premium, high quality, differentiated experience, and we'll leverage the latest streaming technology to deliver that enhanced aggregation experience at a lower cost to serve. In an increasingly disaggregated TV ecosystem with many SVOD services, premium aggregation is a high-quality experience that is desirable for consumers.
By keeping our customers with a differentiated premium aggregation experience, we believe we can maximize lifetime values and continue to deliver strong and growing ARPUs. Let's turn to the iQ5. iQ is the key enabler. This new product, launched to industry products on the seventh of September, is the perfect symbol of our future. It combines the best of streaming with everything our customers love about Foxtel in a new lower cost product. Thanks to the iQ5 and its leading-edge tech stack, we are unlocking an industry-first viewing experience, all while simplifying and streamlining our business. Simply put, it's a better experience at a lower cost. By redesigning our set-top box from the bottom up, we've been able to deliver a cleaner, sleeker, more appealing product for a much lower cost to manufacture. Because it's IP enabled, it's plug-and-play.
There is no need for costly installs, no need for satellites, and it frees us from cable. Our customers can be up and viewing in minutes. iQ5 removes the need for truck rolls, scheduling installations, and waiting for technicians to show up. Great for our customers and great for costs. Even people that could never get satellite can now get the premium Foxtel aggregation experience. The thousands of customers who are unable to install satellites and run cables, specifically many of those in apartment complexes, are now able to experience the rich Foxtel viewing experience. A simple plug-and-play box means greater sales and service efficiency. With its two-part design, you can now even swap a hard drive without swapping the whole box. Most importantly, however, the iQ5 paves the way for a future of streaming aggregation, one that isn't tethered to a limited choice of viewing.
It is instead one that creates an aggregated ecosystem of Foxtel TV twinned with best-of-class apps in a single, simple, integrated user interface. All your viewing options in one place. Easy. All leveraging our single streaming backend. Now let's turn to that premium viewing experience. Our customers already get our huge lineup of channels and streaming VOD library. With our new streaming-ready boxes, customers are now adding apps from Netflix, Amazon, Vevo, Golf TV, to name a few, and that's just the start. What we have found in talking to our customers is that there is a real customer need for aggregation. Streaming has opened up a cornucopia of new apps, and that has come at a consumer cost. It's hard to search, choose shows, and find something to watch. By bringing those apps together all in one place, we make it easier.
Easier to choose, easier to search, and easier to view. That's not all. Over the next few months, we will continuously be updating our user experience to bring sophisticated discovery and universal search, and we'll have voice search enabled for the majority of our customers. Foxtel is the home of premium 4K UHD across sports and movies, all enabled by our iQ platform. Customers will be able to dive straight from their favorite Netflix show to the evening sports in UHD and onto an incredible drama on Foxtel. Every decision we make is with our customers in mind. Let's turn to the impact on our business performance, and critically, to how we optimize customer lifetime value. Over the past 15 months, we have seen some increases in Foxtel churn. This was a conscious decision. We removed deep offers from lower-ARPU customers.
With Kayo and BINGE now successfully launched and operational, we've been able to let many of our lowest revenue customers transition from Foxtel's premium product to our single-genre streaming services. Here, they can receive a lower price and, critically, lower cost to serve experience. This leverages our portfolio approach to give all customers the best experience, while also delivering optimal financial outcomes. Turning to our higher-value customers, those paying more than AUD 50 a month. We believe that our ongoing focus on a premium experience will continue to see even lower churn. Foxtel now has a core base of 1.6 million customers, where the majority are high-revenue, high-value, and long tenure. Customers who've grown up with Foxtel. We recognize and value these customers and will continue to deliver them a premium experience. Our iQ platform enables us to deliver a roadmap of software enhancements with no additional hardware cost.
Like our regular new app launches, for example. Only last month, we launched the Vevo music service, with many more to come. As a result, ARPU is now rising, and while revenue is declining, much of that lost revenue is from lower-ARPU customers and is largely recaptured in our single-genre streaming services. Finally, we should turn to our commercial business. This is a long-standing business with a loyal customer base spread across many diversified sectors. Clearly, the licensed venues and accommodation sector was, and still is, impacted by COVID. Our teams responded proactively to our customers' needs, and as a result, when restrictions lift, we expect to see revenues rapidly bounce back to pre-pandemic levels. Our focus is on building long-term contractual relationships and investing in our customers' future.
Based on what we understand of the government roadmap out of restrictions, we anticipate the commercial business will return to a positive trajectory later this year. Thank you, and now let me hand you over to Amanda Laing, our Chief Commercial and Content Officer.
Thank you, Hilary. This year, Foxtel proudly reached a milestone, having delivered premium content to Australians for 25 years. I'm sure many of us remember that original marketing campaign featuring Bart Simpson declaring, "I want my Foxtel." As you've heard, today's Foxtel Group is very different. Of course, we still have all of those series we've long known and loved, and great content strategy is based on constant renewal. We see that in our groundbreaking Australian productions, our diverse and contemporary lifestyle content, our pipeline of daring new premium dramas, and now the endless choice we provide through integrated third-party apps.
I want to today share with you how our history and reputation of delivering results have established us as the Australian partner of choice for studios, producers, and sports. I also want to provide some insight on how the group-wide approach to content is helping us bring more entertainment and more sport to more viewers than at any time in our history. First, I mentioned our groundbreaking dramas. No series says groundbreaking like our iconic Foxtel Original, "Wentworth," which has just finished an epic nine-season run, watched by millions of fans in 90 countries around the world. I am thrilled to have one of "Wentworth's" stars, Leah Purcell, with us today. Leah plays Rita Connors on "Wentworth," and she's also one of the talented writers for our upcoming Foxtel Original, "The Twelve." Leah, thanks for joining us today.
My pleasure.
Wentworth" has been such an incredible success story for the Foxtel Group and also for Australian television in general. Quite remarkable, really, that an Australian series has resonated with audiences all across the world. What does that say about Australia's creative talent?
That we're amazing, and we can rub shoulders with the global industry. For me, personally, I think what's really reached that broad audience is the fact that it's women. It's women's stories. It's an ensemble cast of majority women in those lead roles. The stories that are around women, they're hard-hitting, but there's also that emotional pull in those characters. I think the caliber of actors that we have on that show is outstanding. Every day, we're trying to top one another, and there's so much support within the group of women. I think that comes through our performances and through the telling of the stories in "Wentworth." It's not only just us on screen. There is a lot of female presence in the crew and also in the writing department, in the production department, and this was all before the MeToo movement.
Foxtel and "Wentworth" were ahead of the time, and you've got to applaud them for that.
I was going to ask, why are Foxtel dramas so successful, do you think? What is different about them?
Look, I think they're refreshing ideas or they're ideas that they like "Wentworth", a good example, did exist prior. Taking it to the next level, the discovery in the story, probing deep and finding truth in characters that everyone around the world can relate to, I think that's why. Also having the support in the writing stages of the project, because you need to nurture the writing, the story, the heart that comes from that makes a good drama. I think that's what it does. You can tell that Foxtel are behind the creative team. It's not just the end product, but from the start at the embryonic stage.
How important is it, do you think, for our First Nations people to have representation both on and off the screen?
Oh, it's extremely important. We're the original storytellers. I think when you can have indigenous people at the helm of those stories being told or in the creative team and being a part of that, is vitally important for, once again, getting to the emotional truth and the truth behind those characters, and that's what makes rich drama. It's really important that indigenous people are there to tell our stories from a truthful place.
We really appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much, Leah.
Thank you.
I said earlier, we're the established partner of choice for international studios and distribution partners. This position is based on strong, long-lasting relationships through which we continue to build secure and wide-ranging content supply deals. These relationships have only deepened over time, with our partners supplying us more content because they see the value to their business of a relationship with the Foxtel Group. What has changed, though, is that we can now bring this content to more viewers than ever before through Foxtel and BINGE for TV shows, Foxtel and Kayo for sports, and now Foxtel and Flash for news. By buying content once, then using it to deliver an incredible all-in-one place experience for Foxtel and using it for our single-genre streaming platforms, we have fundamentally changed the economics of the Foxtel Group's business.
An easy way to think about this is that we have one kitchen serving many restaurants. This approach is underpinned by a sophisticated prioritization and marketing process that allows our brands to remain distinctive, reach more Australians than ever before, and fully monetize the incredible range of content that we buy. We want to make sure that a show that's loved by a Foxtel audience on a linear channel or on demand can also find a brand-new audience on BINGE, allowing us to extract full value from our investments. For Foxtel customers, we complement our content offerings with local and global streaming apps that support the brand's all-in-one place promise. Thanks to these relationships with our diverse range of studio partners, we continue to have an exciting pipeline of new and returning titles.
We're also supplementing this with a rich stream of content and channels and targeted, carefully chosen original productions, which can also build audiences and drive revenue across both Foxtel and BINGE. First, international shows and movies. We'll shortly see the return of the critically acclaimed drama "Succession" for its third season, along with other returning hits such as "Fear the Walking Dead," the "And Just Like That..." from the "Sex and the City" reboot, "Ozark," "Will," and "Raised by Wolves," to name but a few. We'll also be bringing to screens the period drama "The North Water" starring Colin Farrell, and "The Premise," an anthology series from "The Office" star B.J. Novak. In 2022, almost in a category all its own, we'll see the return of the "Game of Thrones" behemoth. The debut of the prequel series, "House of the Dragon.
Finally, I'd like to highlight our much-loved local and scripted originals, Selling Houses Australia, Love It or List It, and The Great Australian Bake Off. We also have, of course, fresh new original drama series hitting our screens in the coming months. These include our next original drama, Love Me, starring Australia's very own Hugo Weaving. This will be a six-part series about modern love, as experienced by three generations of the one Australian family. This show has an incredible cast, and I'm very pleased to have Hugo Weaving and the amazing Heather Mitchell join us from the set of Love Me in Melbourne. Good morning to you both. Hugo, you don't do a lot of television these days, so why now? Why Love Me?
Well, it's funny. No, I don't do lots of TV, but I, once upon a time, did quite a few mini-series with Kennedy Miller way back when, and Heather just happened to be in the first piece of TV I did, actually. I just loved the, this story, really. It's a very simple, universal story. It's a contemporary story about family and grief and love, and it's got a lovely sense of humor. It just feels very real. The characters feel true and likable and very human.
Thanks, Hugo. For you, Heather?
I just think the storyline is stunning in its exploration of love and grief as two of the concepts. What's so amazing is that love and grief is so often very unexpected and often overwhelming. I feel like this storyline not only deals with it in many unexpected ways, but also it's very cross-generational and multi-generational. I feel like one of the great things that resonates for me is that it gives you a great insight into a generation that you may not be part of.
Amazing. Exactly right. When you look at the industry today, could you have imagined how our viewing habits have changed so dramatically?
No. Not at all. I think they have changed massively, and they're still changing. There's been a huge, huge shift in the way in which we view things, and I think it's exciting that people can access whatever they want, whenever they want, on whatever platform they want. Those are all the obvious pluses.
Before I leave you both, can I ask your views on the local industry and the importance for companies like Foxtel to tell Australian stories?
One of the great things, by having all these platforms, I think our view is that Australian stories, which will always be developing and will always be reflecting what's happening in the present, that the access, universal, worldwide access of that, not only the stories, but also the talents of the people who are creating these stories, get seen. I think that then it becomes more of a norm for every type of people to absorb these diverse cultural stories.
I think we're going through a difficult phase at the moment in Australia. As long as we can keep on prioritizing our own culture, then we're fine. It's very easy to jettison who we are. That's actually the only thing we've got, and think everything's got to come to the U.S., everything's got to be sort of Mid-Atlantic. Actually the great benefit we have is that we live in this particular country with this particular climate and particular animals and people and jokes and language, and that's the thing we need to be celebrating, and those are the stories that we need to tell. That's what we've always tried to do. I've been fortunate to work overseas, but always try to come back here, and this is the place I'm interested in. These are the stories I'm interested in telling.
I think we need to keep on prioritizing our own culture, everyone in our industry.
I completely agree with you. Thanks so much for your time, Heather and Hugo. In case you're wondering, Love Me will air later this year. Alongside great TV and movies, for millions of Australians, the Foxtel Group means sport. We are home to the largest and most diverse range of iconic and popular sports, and our subscribers can watch on Foxtel or stream on Kayo. When I say popular, these sports are massive. AFL, NRL, cricket, Supercars, Formula One, golf, and from next year, the Super Netball. Through ESPN, we have the NBA and Australia's National Basketball League, and of course, the NFL. Through our partner, beIN SPORTS, European football, and the tennis with the WTA Tour.
Like our TV and movie studio partnerships, the Foxtel Group's relationships with both Australian and international sporting codes are longstanding and based on a shared dedication to delivering the world's best sports to our subscribers. There are also several sports, like netball, that have returned to the Foxtel Group after a hiatus on free-to-air. That's happened because we've again proven to be a great partner. We've shown that we are dedicated to championing their sport, their teams, their athletes through world-class live sports production, as well as analysis and opinion on our award-winning magazine and panel shows. Those partnerships provide sports with the potential to be seen by a huge audience, thanks to the Foxtel Group's large base of sports subscribers.
Not only are our sports partners joining us and sticking with us, but we're also growing and improving those relationships over time with better production terms, better rights, and more access to Kayo. For example, we recently announced the renewal of our multi-year deal with MotoGP and World Superbikes, which saw us secure a significant uplift in exclusive rights for the Foxtel Group. With these strong and diverse sports partnerships, we're able to deliver a full calendar of sports year-round. No one else in Australia offers the breadth and depth of the Foxtel Group's sports coverage. This page doesn't even show us everything. As part of our overall sports content strategy, we've gone deeper with select major codes. You can see there is no gap there between cricket, NRL, AFL, motorsports, and golf. We've also been very deliberate and data-driven in how we've put together our sports portfolio.
These are the sports that we believe drive viewership, loyalty, and subscriber growth. They deliver the right return and the right offering that our subscribers love. Let me now hand you back to Patrick to introduce the final section of the presentation.
Thanks, Amanda. A fantastic presentation of a very rich story. I know we've got a lot of people that have joined us today. One of our shareholders' most important goals has been to share our strategy with the investment community. Ultimately, the strategy has to be about delivering outcomes for customers, and shareholders, and in turn, our investors. Let's finish the formal part of the presentation with our Chief Financial Officer, Stuart Hutton. He will take us through how the execution of our strategy is translating into financial performance.
Thanks, Patrick, and good morning to everyone. I joined the Foxtel Group in August this year. By way of background, I've been a senior financial executive for the past 15 years at global Australian public companies, including Pact Group and Amcor. Most recently, I was the CFO of Orora for 7 years, which was demerged from Amcor in December 2013. The Foxtel Group is certainly a step change from making bottles and cans. I see the company as an exciting opportunity, and I'm looking forward to continuing to build the business based on the strategy that's been outlined today. Before I get into the detail, please note all numbers provided are in Australian dollars and prepared on US generally accepted accounting principles rather than IFRS principles. There are reconciliations for certain non-GAAP measures and for EBITDA based on IFRS principles, which are used by Australian companies.
These are in the appendix for the presentation. You'll find the presentation on our website. Now, on to the presentation. The business delivered a strong financial performance in FY 2021, and this is despite the impact of COVID, generating sales revenue of approximately AUD 2.8 billion. This was a result of leveraging our portfolio of world-class content and continuing implementation of our three strategic pillars: driving growth through streaming, strengthening Foxtel Retail by offering more value to existing customers and reducing cost to serve, and winning with world-class content and technology. EBITDA was in line with FY 2020 at approximately AUD 460 million. The Foxtel Group is the largest Australian media company based on revenue. The results of the past year have been strong, and the business is well-positioned for growth in the future.
Let me step you through more detail on the drivers of revenue. With the launch and rapid growth of streaming products driving subscription revenue, this additional reach also provides opportunities for advertising revenue growth, which combined with helping group revenues to stabilize. The Foxtel Retail business has steadied but is still slowly declining. It's a credit to the team, however, that through a number of initiatives around value, content, and technology, that the pace of decline has slowed. Pleasingly, as we implement the strategy, and we leverage the reach of over 4 million subscribers, we have been able to keep developing new revenue streams. In this context, growth in streaming subscribers and digital advertising revenues are key drivers for us, while we work hard at maintaining Foxtel Retail revenues. The aspiration from here is to steadily improve revenues towards AUD 3 billion in the coming years.
While stabilizing revenues has been very positive, to drive earnings growth, the team has been undertaking a strategic cost transformation program. This slide highlights the success of this transformation with a reduction in costs from the 2019 financial year of approximately 10% from $250 million down to $2.3 billion. The largest portion of these costs came out in FY 2019 and FY 2020. We took the decision provided by the disruption from COVID to reshape the business for the future. The team identified various cost and efficiency levers that were seen as critical to reshape and simplify the business and establish a platform to deliver growth into the future. These initiatives included right-sizing support functions, including consolidating them where possible. Renegotiating content rights, focusing on premium sports and entertainment.
This included the implementation of a more disciplined approach to assessing the value of content decision-making, which continues today. Where possible, transition to a lower-cost operating model. This will take some time to play out as there is a continuing need to support the Foxtel Retail business. Streamlining, automating, and digitizing process flows, albeit some reinvestment of these savings was required to support the growth of the streaming platform. Ongoing investment in technology to deliver a lower and sustainable cost base. As you heard from Les earlier, this is a multi-year journey. In total, the headcount reduction from these programs was approximately 800 roles, which equated to 30% of the total FY 2019 headcount. The simple goal is to maintain this improved cost efficiency to continue to look to ways to simplify and automate the business.
We are now a business that manages cost discipline very well, and we have introduced a variety of controls on costs for core areas of the business. The culture of the business has been transformed, where every opportunity for cost savings is considered with the aim of being as lean as possible. With revenue stabilizing and control of costs a continuing focus, EBITDA has remained relatively stable across FY 2020 and FY 2021 at approximately $460 million. EBITDA margins are strong at 17%. It is worth noting that there were some costs deferred from FY 2020 to FY 2021 for normalized sport , amortization, and production costs due to COVID-19 postponements. Both years are seen as a fair representation of the underlying earnings. The aspiration from here is with slow but steady growth in revenues and relentless focus on cost control, this business is well-placed for earnings growth.
One of the key aspects of our transformation is the progression towards being a low-cost digital operator. The CapEx burden on Foxtel is already reducing and is expected to continue to reduce over time. The cost to onboard a new subscriber, which is illustrated on this slide, is a great example. If you go back, the more traditional method of a satellite installation involved some technicians in a Foxtel truck installing a satellite on the roof and setting up the relevant set-top unit at the customer site, much of which was at Foxtel's cost. The way forward for on-site hardware, such as the iQ5, which will be rolled out over the next couple of years, is internet-based plug-and-play technology, which reduces CapEx costs significantly. Even more pronounced are the cost advantages of adding a new subscriber to a streaming platform.
This has virtually no incremental upfront costs as the technology stack for those platforms has already been built, and the customers own their own preferred viewing device. With a capital-light subscriber growth model and supporting a few operating platforms over time, another feature of our transformation is the expected reduction in capital expenditure. The transition from traditional cable and satellite, which will need to be maintained, to digital technology has lowered our expected future capital requirements. This slide illustrates the journey clearly, with CapEx falling from 14% of revenues in FY 2019 to 7% in FY 2021. As mentioned earlier, our aspiration is to get this measure down to approximately 4% over the next few years. Turning to cash flow. The result of stable revenues and a lower cost base with CapEx burden has been stronger cash flow.
This is the key financial outcome of the transformation of the Foxtel Group. As you can see on this slide, our ability to generate cash has improved significantly. This is expected to be sustained, especially as the CapEx burden reduces. This provides optionality to continue to invest in the growth of the business and return surplus cash flows to shareholders. To this point, the funds have been primarily used to materially reduce external debt levels. That concludes my commentary. I'll now hand over to Patrick for some closing remarks before we open up for questions. Thank you.
Thanks, Stuart. Well, today we've provided an in-depth look at our business, and I hope you get a sense of the focus that we have as a management team and how we are turning this into performance. To summarize today's presentation, the Foxtel Group has been repositioned for growth. We are a premium capital-light, IP-led company with over 4 million total subscribers. We have multiple and growing revenue streams with strategic price flexibility. We have a diverse range of innovative streaming products which are growing rapidly. We have strengthened the Foxtel business with a focus on our loyal high-value subscribers, and we are embracing IP. We have a competitive position with premium sport and entertainment content, combined with long-term partner relationships. We've transformed digital operations with sustained efficiency and consumer benefits. Importantly, we have high cash flow generation supporting investment in growth and returns.
Well, that concludes the formal presentation. We now have time for questions from the investment community. You can submit those via the chat function on the right-hand side of your screen. Well, I'm delighted to be joined by Ross Greenwood, the business editor from Sky News and one of Australia's most respected journalists, to facilitate all of your questions. Good morning, Ross. It's morning for us. I know for a lot of our U.S. investors and Europeans, it's certainly not morning.
No, it's certainly not morning. For them, can I just say, click on the right-hand side of your screen to get that chat function. Send us a question. We'd love to have put it to the team here. Stuart Hutton standing by in our Melbourne studio. Patrick here with me, in the Sydney studio. Patrick, I just want to start by asking for that North American audience that's listening, there are some fundamental differences in paid television, in Australia versus the United States. Part of it comes from the way in which it's distributed. Part of it comes to even the power of Foxtel in terms of its dominant market share. Just to comment on that.
Look, I think the first thing to understand is the penetration rates that Pay TV achieves in Australia are nowhere near that of the States or even Europe, as Stuart said in the presentation. Our penetration was always quite low. There were a lot of questions about whether people were willing to pay for television. We were hamstrung by cable and satellite. Whereas in America, the penetration rate was very, very high. That gives rise to a great opportunity for us, which you're seeing come out of the streaming, because we're able to offer a different service to the 75% or more that couldn't get Foxtel. The second thing is that we really are the only Pay TV player of scale in Australia. As opposed to in the States where there are regional Pay TV players that do have markets.
The other thing is we own a lot of our own content. We produce channels, we own the VOD, and that's given rise to how we're able to stream. It also gives rise to our scale. We are a meaningful player in this country, which isn't a big country. We only have 25 million people. We're seeing those penetration rates that were previously hamstrung, that opportunity, we're moving into it. The other thing, I could take it up forever, but the other thing is that, in the ststes a provider might have the NBA, or they might have American football. We here have all the sports and all the content. We're really quite meaningful in terms of scale. The relationships go for 25 years.
The last thing I'd say, Ross, is that because we are the pay TV player and now the streaming player, we're able to work with our content providers to buy their content direct, but also if they want to go over the top, also help them to go over the top. I think there'll be a mixture of both going forward, where we are facilitating them going over the top and we're buying content for both.
While questions are coming in, just one other one, which almost is the elephant in the room in some ways. When this announcement, this day of understanding Foxtel was announced, a lot of people would've imagined that this was the announcement of the IPO, that Foxtel was going to go public, there was going to be a capital raising, the shareholders would sell down. It hasn't happened. It's not what this day is about, obviously. Just explain the shape of Foxtel today versus the last time that there was conversation about an IPO.
You can always tell when you're talking to a journalist, there's always a twist in it. My mandate's not here from the shareholders about an IPO. That's for them to decide. The reason for this Foxtel Group Strategy Day is to explain to investors and the shareholders our strategy and how we have delivered value, and that we are now facing a trajectory of growth. I think that's very, very important. The strategy was put together in 2018. We've stuck to it. We're going to stick to it for the next 3 years. We think it's a great strategy. It's unique for us in Australia to be able to grow through streaming, to strengthen Foxtel, make sure we keep those valuable customers, give them better value, more value. Importantly, that tech stack, it's delivering real value.
We started it, the plan in 2018 to build it, I think COVID helped us gain real conviction around it, where we've got those four capital projects that are in the middle. Ultimately, it will give rise to what we're calling a single spine, where we can not only run all of our streaming products off it, but we'll run Foxtel off it. It means cost down, but it also means better value for subscribers.
All right. Let's go to the questions that are coming in. The first one is from Craig Huber at Huber Research Partners. He asks, "Just what percentage of households in Australia buy at least one service from Foxtel? Can you compare that today with what it was 5 years ago?
Okay. Well, look, that's a great question, and it goes to that penetration rate. Without going into exact percentages, because you've got to compare it to what the available houses are and everything. five years ago, we would've been around the 20%, right? Now, as we sit 30 June, last financial year, we're nearly one in two homes. We're gaining scale, and penetration. The point I'd like to make is that we're not now hampered by cables and satellites. We're not hampered by affordability. We've got an ecosystem of products that can suit the content we have, the devices, and importantly, the customers. That dual strategy is working well between premium Foxtel and what we're calling the single-genre streamers. As we go forward, we want to reposition Foxtel as a streaming aggregator.
Is it reasonable to say the bigger your penetration, the bigger your ability to either upsell or to be able to target digital advertising through those larger number of people that you've got as your customer base?
The advertising question's a really interesting one. Within the presentation, we showed the up-weight of digital advertising. What we're seeing because of that penetration is that we now are a player of reach, which we've not been previously. We've been seen as a boutique advertising play, with a niche reach. We've now got scale and reach. The interesting thing about the tech stack is that the more IP we go, the more we're able to serve digital ads and addressability. The way we like to put it is, we go from the traditional dumb video, right, where it's just video with reach, to being really intelligent video where we can back it with digital data, but also serve addressable ads with scale.
All right, let's move on. A question here from Lucy Huang at Bank of America. "Can you provide some statistics for Kayo and BINGE subscribers as well?
It's interesting. One of the things we've learned with the streaming services is that it's not actually churn in streaming services. It's very different to a pay TV service where you market and you almost bring a conveyor belt of subscribers along, where you soft them up to, "Are you going to get it?" Then you put it in, you spend a lot of capital, and once they say, "I don't want the service," you take the capital equipment out, and they're gone. That's real churn. In the streaming services, it's not churn, it's pausing. You don't have to pull any capital equipment out. You've got all of the rich data. This is another thing that we are learning. We've got great tech stack, got a great team that can use the data.
Something like Kayo, which is seasonal, we know the subscribers and what they like, say, during the winter season, what the crossover is between all of the sports we have. When it comes to the summer season, there are some customers we know that will pause. They'll pause for 3 months until the winter season again. There are others that we know that will cross over so we can send communications. It's the same with BINGE. We have rich data, so we know the type of content they like, and it's a matter of pulling those levers. The other thing I'd say, is that as we go through the cycles of seasons and of whether it's a season of a show or a season of a sport, and we go through years in the streaming side, we're learning.
We're seeing that people are pausing their subscriptions less as they get to like the services. Both of those services are not just that promotable material at the top. They've got very rich material once you're inside them.
Is it fair to say that broadly, your audience loves football? That's the one thing it loves. Same in the U.S., same in the U.K. People just love football. Football season is where you get your big kick out.
They do. Look, you raise an interesting point because there's another difference between America and Australia. America, I think most people are interested in the NFL. Most people are interested in the NFL. They go nationally. In Australia, it's north and south divide. The southern states love Aussie Rules, Australian Football League, and the northern states love Rugby League. We have both, and you've got to have both. It's an interesting paradigm.
All right. Let's go to another question. Lucy, follow-up question here. Can you provide any color around the size of the cost base if Foxtel can continue to extract efficiencies? This one I think I might get Stuart to have a chat about that, because Stuart, this is one of the important parts about this story. It's often been considered to be a bit of a, in some ways, a utility. In other words, just steady cash flow coming through with not much growth. This is a bit of growth strategy, isn't it?
Yes, thank you. That was a very good question. Yeah, I think the transformation that we've undertaken in the last few years on the cost base is evidence of that. Also, as you referred to, the stabilizing of the revenue line is important in terms of obviously stabilizing that part, but the cost coming out means that obviously we're looking for and well-positioned for earnings growth. I think the question is there more opportunity around cost? Well, I think there always is. What I've been very impressed with since I've joined here is the robustness of the processes around that are in place to make sure that costs don't creep back into the business. I think if people want to put more employees on or they want to invest in something, well, there's got to be benefit for the corporation moving forward.
Whether that's additional revenues, ideally, which drives more earnings or it's cost out to drive more earnings, that's the process that's in place. I've seen requests come that have been rejected because we're not convinced that the case is robust enough. I think the cultural change that's in place here has been very impressive. We're well positioned to make sure we don't get leakage back in, and I think there's also more opportunity, especially as we go forward and we migrate off some of these legacy distribution platforms, there's more opportunity to take further cost out.
Okay, another follow-up question to that one. This comes from T. Rowe Price. I'll actually ask both of you this question because what do you anticipate doing with your free cash flow, and what will you use it for? For example, will you pay down debt? Will you invest in more product? What will you do?
Let me have a go first, and then Patrick can by all means add. I would say, look, our preference from this side is we would like to invest for growth. Whether that's investing in content to drive additional revenues or it's investing in technology to take cost out, that would be our preference. Certainly, the shareholders, we'll be working with them around as we put forward those proposals. I guess in the absence of all that, initially, we would just pay down debt is the smartest thing to do. Obviously, if the shareholders so direct, we will return it to them.
Okay. Patrick, there's almost a supplementary question here because obviously a lot of the big global players have come to Australia, setting up shop and competing with you. The interesting part about that is the question of content into the future, whether there is enough content if they withdraw content. What's your experience been, Will?
I think there's more time to play out on that. These relationships go back a long way, and as I said earlier, we have real scale in this country. We pay the studios a lot of money, and the reason we do that is because we have such a diverse range of needs for content. We've, of course, got the big FHB engine, that's been as playing, and now we've got more reach. The interesting thing is, clearly, Disney has gone its own way. Other players, I think, will show that there might be a mixture of working with us, both on selling us content and with us pushing their direct-to-consumer. We're in that unique position where we can do both. We'll see how it plays out.
I am pretty confident that the relationships and the scale, all the things I talked about, the difference between Australia and America, and indeed with Europe, all of those things mean that things can play out interestingly here, and Foxtel's really well set up for it.
All right. Let's go to another question from T. Rowe Price. Just how successful have you been at converting Live Pass customers to Kayo? This is a pretty important thing because these were relatively cheap entries into streaming services and sport. Just how big an opportunity is this over the next few quarters?
Just to explain that for the U.S. investors. Live Pass was a service that our past partner shareholder had that put live games of AFL and NRL to air on mobile phones with screen restrictions. Last year, Telstra decided to actually go full hog with us on Kayo. Kayo is not just one or two sports, it's 50 sports full screen. In this coming season, we made an offer for the Live Pass customers to come on board at AUD 5 for the first season. It was taken up well. What we're seeing in those customers is real stickiness. They're very engaged in the 50 sports.
It means that we are very optimistic when it comes to next season, and we'll give them another offer to bring them along the journey of paying the full price, that they will stick, and they're going to be great revenue earners. That's the story of Kayo. I think as these cycles go through, as the years go through, the word of mouth on Kayo is very good. Hopefully, people are getting the impression we use a lot of data, and we do. We monitor all of these things. We're seeing the brand affinity, brand knowledge, and importantly, people that are considering getting it from season to season very strong. We got some good demand via the Live Pass offer this year, and as we go into our full cycles with Kayo as well.
Good stuff. All right, another question about exclusive content on streaming services, and originals, and also the content you buy from Ingrid Cheung at Citi. "Will you be offering exclusive content on your streaming services that are not on the Foxtel paid TV services? Does that mean you'll need to invest more into content into the future?" This is about the investment that you've got, the cash that you've got to spend.
It's not the plan. The plan is to continually invest as a group. That is our strategy. The strategy is to buy content once, create content once, and use it many ways in that product ecosystem. Part of the whole philosophy around Kayo and BINGE was what we saw with our local airline Qantas and Jetstar, the way they have two sets of airplanes under different brands aiming at different segments of the market. This is very similar to that. Kayo and BINGE aim at that 75% we never got. I think in order to make sure that our Foxtel customers feel value and are respected, we put all content out on both services, but we don't necessarily promote it that way. For example, there's a great BBC show, a TV show that we've just had, Gecko, which is a murder mystery on its own.
Very popular in Australia. It was on both services. We hammered the Foxtel subscribers to make sure they knew it, and we went above the line as a BINGE show. Excuse me. That formula works really well to make sure there's no consumer confusion, and that both sets of subscribers feel they're getting value.
All right. That concludes the questions from the investment community. Just to wrap it up, can I just ask to reiterate those three-year targets that you have got for this business? To really just reinforce for people, just what you're aiming for, what your aspirations are, and just where you expect this business to be in three years.
Yeah. The first thing is we're going to stick to our strategy, strengthen Foxtel, grow through streaming, and win through world-class content and tech. In other words, use that back of house, which goes to that last question. We commission once, all those sorts of things. We are aiming for 5 million+ subscribers. We are aiming for around AUD 3 billion of revenue and to widen our margin. I think the last is really important, and that's that 4% CapEx to revenue ratio to maintain the cash flow momentum that we've got and that we really enjoy. It's great to see that. That's, I think, a real sign of transformation of the business.
Yeah. Well, Patrick, thank you so much for your candor and, of course, for the investing community and their questions.
Yeah. Look, thank you very much for joining us on the other side of the planet from Australia. We hope that the deep dive has provided you with an understanding of today's Foxtel Group, which is a very different business. It's not the Foxtel of 5 years ago and certainly not the Foxtel of 25 years ago. We've got a clear strategy to grow through streaming, say it again, strengthen Foxtel, and to win through world-class content and technology. Importantly, I hope you all feel that we are demonstrating that consistent execution of this strategy is delivering growth and value for our customers, which in turn gives value to our two shareholders and our investors. We've articulated those ambitions to continue to grow and to deliver value. If you'd like to go through the materials and the presentation, they're available on the Foxtel Group website.
Thank you again for joining us. Thank you, Ross, for your help today, and look forward to talking again soon.