* Earnings of 46 cents a share match Wall Street estimates
* Comcast loses fewer cable video customers than expected
* NBC has ratings momentum-analyst
* Shares up 1.3 percent
Oct 26 (Reuters) - Comcast Corp posted a higher quarterly profit on Friday after its NBC Universal media unit scored $1.2 billion in additional revenue from its London Olympics coverage.
The leading U.S. cable TV company, whose shares rose more than 1 percent in premarket trading, also benefited from adding Internet users.
The London Olympics coverage helped NBC Universal's revenue climb more than 30 percent to $6.8 billion from a year earlier. The games drew a record audience that averaged 31.1 million viewers per night, 12 percent above the Beijing Olympics.
In the third quarter, revenue at NBC Universal's NBC broadcast unit jumped 84 percent to $2.78 billion.
Because of the Olympics, "broadcast actually made money for the first time in a long time," said Macquarie analyst Amy Yong.
The strong ratings performance over the summer means Comcast will at least break even on its $1.18 billion deal for Olympics broadcast rights, while analysts had initially expected it to lose money on the agreement.
Yong said Comcast shares were trading higher on Friday because NBC's ratings momentum could extend to the fourth quarter. To the surprise of industry analysts, NBC has been leading its competitors in TV ratings in the key 18-49 age group this fall.
Comcast took a 51 percent controlling stake in NBC Universal in January 2011, but still generates the bulk of its revenue from its steady cable TV business.
Revenue at the cable unit rose 7 percent to $9.97 billion. Its 287,000 new Internet customers also beat StreetAccount estimates of 277,000 additions. The company lost 117,000 video customers, smaller than the loss of 133,000 that the research firm had forecast.
Yong, the Macquarie analyst, said she had expected Comcast to add video subscribers in the fourth quarter.
Average revenue per video customer rose about 9 percent to $150.73 as more subscribers bought pricier products, such as high-definition digital recorder devices.
Comcast posted third-quarter net income of $2.1 billion, or 78 cents a share. Excluding gains from sales of spectrum and a stake in A&E Networks, earnings came to 46 cents a share, matching the analysts' average estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 15 percent to $16.54 billion, which came in above Wall Street estimates of $16.08 billion.
Comcast shares were up 1.3 percent at $36.82 in trading before the market opened.
eat to live eat to live ron paul money bomb ron paul money bomb bon vivant zynga ipo zynga ipo
No comments:
Post a Comment