Comcast Profit Down 8 Percent

PHILADELPHIA: Third-quarter revenues at Comcast Corporation gained 7.3 percent to $9.5 billion, but a rise in expenses and slower subscriber growth saw its profit slip 8 percent to $867 million.

The quarter’s results include $21 million in expenses related to the NBC Universal transaction. Overall expenses rose from $5.5 billion to $5.9 billion.

At Comcast Cable, revenues were up by 6.9 percent to $9 billion. In the period, the segment saw its video customers base fall by 3.5 percent from 23.7 million to 22.9 million (including 19.5 million digital video customers, an 8.1-percent rise), while the number of high-speed Internet customers rose 6.5 percent to 16.7 million and the number of voice customers gained 13.2 percent to 8.3 million. The total number of revenue generating units gained 4 percent to 67.4 million.

In the programming segment, revenues were up by 8.7 percent to $416 million.