Q2 Video Losses Improve At Comcast

With its pending acquisition of Time Warner Cable continuing to wind through the approval process, Comcast continued to show strong operating performance, with key quarterly subscriber growth metrics the best they've been at the nation's largest cable operator in six years.

Comcast lost about 144,000 basic video customers in the period, better than the 162,000 it lost in the quarter last year and its best Q2 performance since 2008. High-speed data additions of 203,000 in the period were ahead of the 187,000 additions last year and the best Q2 growth since 2008.

That helped drive revenue at the cable operations up 5.4% to $11 billion and operating cash flow up 5.3% to $4.6 billion. Overall revenue rose 3.5% to $16.8 billion and OCF was up 7% to $5.8 billion.

“We continue to see strong momentum across our cable and content businesses," Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement. "In cable, we posted the best second quarter customer results for both video and high-speed Internet in six years and saw tremendous demand for our X1 product, which is a truly transformative experience. We are also pleased with the continued rapid growth of business services, which has quickly become an important engine for the company. NBCUniversal had another excellent quarter with double-digit operating cash flow growth driven by solid results in each segment and a first place finish for NBC for the 2013/2014 broadcast television season.”