Time Warner Cable 3Q net income rises

[November 04, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Time Warner Cable Inc., the country's second-largest cable company, lost more video subscribers in the latest quarter than it ever has before, keeping the question alive of whether Internet video is finally starting to cut into the cable business.

Cable executives have so far dismissed the idea that "cord-cutting" is due to the encroachment of the Internet -- high-end TVs now come with the built-in ability to watch Internet movies and TV shows -- and blamed the speedup in subscriber flight on the weak economy.

Yet Time Warner Cable on Thursday reported losing 155,000 video subscribers in the latest quarter, compared to 64,000 in the same period last year, when the economy was worse.

The only larger cable company, Comcast Corp., last week reported that its subscriber loss more than doubled in the third quarter, to 275,000.

Whatever the reason for the subscriber flight, cable companies are more than compensating for the loss of subscribers by selling more services to the remaining ones.

New York-based Time Warner Cable said its third-quarter net income was $360 million, or $1 per share, up from $268 million, or 76 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 5.2 percent to $4.73 billion.

The earnings were boosted by a net 4 cents per share from various items. Excluding those, results still exceeded the average analysts forecast of earnings of 89 cents per share on revenue of $4.72 billion, as polled by Thomson Reuters.

[Associated Press; By PETER SVENSSON]

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.