TWC Screens Strong Earnings, Digital Critical To Future

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Following other cable operators, Time Warner Cable continues to see growth in Internet and voice customers -- while it loses older video consumers.

This comes as Time Warner Cable, the second-largest U.S. cable operator, shows a strong earnings rise in its second-quarter 2011 -- a 23% rise to $420 million in net profits from $342 million in the second quarter of 2010. These results beat Wall Street estimates.

Revenues also moved higher: 4.4% to $4.94 billion. Advertising revenues -- locally sold through its cable systems -- grew 4.2% to $225 million from $216 million.

Time Warner Cable Internet customers gained 67,000, up 8.5%; voice customers added 45,000, 4.4% higher than the previous period; and traditional video customers slipped 128,000 -- down 0.1%.

To combat traditional losses in video consumers, cable operators have made gains with new digital video services.

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Also, many are experimenting with controversial mobile apps, which can deliver similar TV set live programming to mobile devices. TV content providers that already have deals with cable operators say those deals do not extend free of charge to cable operators when it comes to mobile applications.

Time Warner executives continue to express the ongoing importance of Internet services to the growth of the company.

While Time Warner has strong results, investors -- at least in the short term -- are seeing a different story. Midday trading of the stock was down nearly 3% to $74.80.

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