Universal is bright spot in Comcast earnings

Oct. 31-Comcast Corp., the cable-TV and media giant, reported Wednesday that third-quarter revenue fell 2.4 percent because of the unfavorable comparison with the prior year when its top line was boosted by the blast of TV advertising associated with the London Olympics.

Third-quarter profits also took an 18 percent hit because of a separate unfavorable comparison. A year ago, those profits were inflated with the cash proceeds of the sale of wireless spectrum to Verizon Wireless and Comcast’s sale of its stake in A&E Television Networks L.L.C.

After adjusting for these extraordinary events, Comcast says its third quarter revenue rose 5.2 percent to $16.2 billion and per-share net income rose 41 percent to 65 cents.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable-TV and residential Internet provider, operated smoothly across its many divisions in the third quarter, though it slipped in one key metric. The company lost 129,000 cable-TV subscribers compared with 117,000 subscriber losses in the third quarter of 2012.

At the same time, Comcast added 297,000 high-speed Internet customers compared with 287,000 new additions in the year-ago period, and 169,000 new phone customers compared with 123,000.

A bright spot was Universal films, whose operating cash flow — a measure of its profitability — jumped almost 170 percent to $189 million because of the bounding success of Despicable Me 2, one of the most profitable films ever for Universal.

“Comcast NBCUniversal has real momentum and many opportunities ahead,” Brian Roberts, chief executive officer and chairman, said in the earning statement.

bfernandez@phillynews.com

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Category: Science & Technology