PHILADELPHIA — Consumers signing up for digital cable TV and high-speed Internet services led to a 12 percent increase in first- quarter profit for Comcast. The company also said advertising on its cable channels rebounded in the quarter, indicating that an economic upturn is taking hold.
The nation’s largest cable-TV provider still sounded cautious notes Wednesday, as the jobless rate remains high and the housing market still is under duress. Cable companies often consider the construction of homes to be prime opportunities to sign up new customers as they move in.
The quarter also showed how competition in the TV business is taking a toll. Comcast’s overall video revenue fell, in part because the company wasn’t able to raise cable-TV rates as much as it had a year earlier.
Comcast earned $866 million, or 31 cents per share, from January through March. That compares with $772 million, or 27 cents per share, in the same quarter in the prior year. Revenue rose 3.8 percent to $9.2 billion from $8.9 billion in the first quarter of 2009. The Associated Press
