• by Wayne Friedman , October 27, 2011

Time Warner Cable felt the brunt that other media -- including TV stations groups -- have been feeling when it comes to local advertising sales: a dip in revenues in its third-quarter reporting period.

Ad revenues sank 3.1% to $265 million, with Time Warner Cable -- as other TV stations have -- blaming lower political advertising dollars. However, it says this was partially offset by an increase in revenues from advertising inventory sold on behalf of other video distributors.

TW Cable has also seen similar results to what other big cable operators have experienced over several reporting periods. Newer businesses like Internet and phone/voice have been growing, while more mature ones, such as TV/video subscriptions, have been flattening out.

Still, its biggest revenue-generating business, TV/video, slipped 0.5% to $2.6 billion. The company said this was because of a decline in revenues from premium channels and transactional video-on-demand.

But this was countered by overall price increases, including a greater percentage of subscribers purchasing higher-priced tiers of service, as well as increased revenues from equipment rental and installation charges and DVR service.

Internet business and high-speed data, continue to thrive -- up 7.8% to $1.1 billion. Time Warner Cable's phone/voice business grew 3.1% to $494 million. Overall residential services climbed 2.0% to $4.3 billion.

TW Cable's business services, however, made better percentage gains -- 34.8% to $387 million.

Overall revenues for the company swelled 3.7% to $4.9 billion. Operating income grew 8.1% to $1 billion, and net income slipped 1.1% to $356 million.

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