Cablevision Treading Water

Updated from 11:14 a.m. EST

A tanking economy and heavy competition are testing Cablevision's (CVC Quote) buoyancy.

Cablevison swung to a big loss amid solid sales and subdued subscriber growth in the fourth quarter.

The Bethpage, N.Y., cable provider posted a net loss of $321 million, or $1.11 a share, compared to a profit of $6.6 million, or 3 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Total sales for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 were $2.05 billion, up 11% from $1.8 billion in the same period last year. Analysts were looking for an adjusted profit of 33 cents a share on $2.06 billion in sales, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Cable companies along with telcos like AT&T (T Quote) and Verizon (VZ Quote) have been in a brutal battle for one another's customers. The so-called triple-play service bundles and package prices have created a high rate of churn as customers jump from one provider to another, with no single winner emerging.

This brutal competitive climate is made worse by the steepening recession, which has consumers looking to trim costs and cancel services to conserve cash.

Unlike No. 1 cable player Comcast (CMCSA Quote), which posted solid numbers despite a drop in subscriber growth, Cablevision managed to hold on to customers. The company says it increased its revenue-generating units -- a measure of total services sold -- by 100,500, or 1%, over the third quarter and by 6.8% in a year.

Cablevision lost 3,800 or less than 1% of its basic TV subscribers in the quarter, much less than analysts expected. And the company managed to see a slight increase in subscribers to other services. Since the end of the third quarter, digital TV users increased by 22,800 or .8%, cable modem customers were up 28,200 or 1.2% and phone customers grew by 53,400 or 2.9% in the fourth quarter.