Cablevision Loss Widens, but Sales Climb

CablevisionCVC fell well short of Wall Street's bottom line estimates Thursday, but better-than-expected revenue helped lift the stock.

The Bethpage, N.Y., cable giant said its first-quarter loss widened to $31.6 million, or 11 cents a share. Those numbers compare with a year-ago loss of $26.3 million, or 9 cents a share. In the fourth quarter, Cablevision had swung to a profit of $6.6 million, or 2 cents a share, from a loss of $23.9 million, or 8 cents a share, in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Sales for the quarter rose 10.2% from a year ago to $1.72 billion, but was down 6.5% sequentially.

While the company's loss of 11 cents a share widely missed the Thomson Reuters average estimate for a profit of 2 cents a share, Cablevision topped the average revenue target of $1.69 billion. Shares were up 1.5% to $24.10.

Cablevision said it added 197,000 revenue generating units, or RGU, during the quarter, as the company saw significant customer additions in its basic video, digital video, Internet and voice businesses.

"Cablevision had a very solid start to 2008 with strong gains in net revenue ... fueled largely by continuing growth in the company's core cable business," CEO Jim Dolan said in a press release. "For the first quarter, we added customers across all of our consumer services, including basic video, and became the first cable company to achieve a 50% penetration rate for high speed Internet."