Comcast Trims Cash Flow Targets

Comcast (CMCSA) posted a flat third quarter and trimmed full-year cash flow guidance, citing costs related to its National Hockey League contract and rising capital spending.

The Philadelphia-based cable system operator made $222 million, or a dime a share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with $220 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose to $5.58 billion from $5.1 billion a year ago. Operating cash flow jumped to $2.1 billion from $1.86 billion a year ago.

At the cable division, revenue rose 9.8% from a year ago to $5.3 billion, and operating cash flow rose 13.9%. Video revenue rose 5.7% from a year ago to $3.4 billion, driven by higher revenue per basic user and a gain of 307,000 new digital customers. Basic subscribers fell 0.4% from a year ago to 21.4 million.

Pay-per-view revenue increased 7.9% from the same period last year, driven by movie and event purchases through the Comcast On Demand service. During the third quarter, Comcast Cable deployed 326,000 advanced set-top boxes with DVR and/or HDTV programming capability, ending the quarter with a total of 2.3 million advanced set-top boxes in service. As of Sept. 30, 21.8% of digital customers have one or more advanced set-top boxes.

High-speed Internet service revenues increased 26.1% to $1.0 billion in the third quarter of 2005, reflecting a 24.2% increase in subscribers and strong average revenue per subscriber. Comcast Cable ended the third quarter of 2005 with more than 8.1 million high-speed Internet subscribers, adding 437,000 subscribers during the quarter and resulting in a penetration rate of 19.9% of available homes. Average monthly revenue per high-speed Internet subscriber in the third quarter of 2005 of $42.88 was in line with a year ago.