8/3 – Comcast Posts Better 2Q profit

Comcast Corp., the country’s largest cable TV company, is bucking the trend among cable companies by making more money from its TV subscribers. While others are seeing declining revenue from the provision of TV signals, Comcast is still eking out some growth. That, along with the sale of still-growing broadband services and strong results from the newly acquired NBC Universal operations, let the company beat expectations with its second-quarter results. The company reported Wednesday that its net income rose to $1.02 billion, or 37 cents per share, for the April-June period, up 16 percent from $884 million, or 31 cents per share, a year ago. Excluding a tax adjustment and costs related to the NBC deal, which closed in January, earnings came to 42 cents per share, beating the 41 cents average expected by analysts polled by FactSet.  Revenue rose 51 percent to $14.3 billion, mainly on the addition of NBC Universal. Analysts were expecting $13.7 billion.