Cablevision Systems Corp.
witnessed big advertising growth in the first quarter at its Rainbow Media cable networks unit -- this coming on the heels of a planned spinoff of the division.
Rainbow -- which will
be called AMC Networks, after the current division that houses big drama "Mad Men" -- picked up 15% in advertising revenue gains in the first quarter of 2011.
Overall revenue -- including
subscriber fees -- rose 10% to $272.9 million.
Better ad results were driven by higher pricing at AMC and WE tv, and to a lesser extent, more commercial units sold and higher pricing at IFC.
Industry cable advertising sales executives have said pricing gains at many networks have been as high as 40% over previous pricing set during the upfront a year ago.
Other advertising
revenues -- from local cable system TV efforts and otherwise -- dropped to $33 million from $41 million in the first quarter.
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Overall, Cablevision had higher overall net income of $104.1
million versus $74.2 million. Other strong news included company-wide revenue climbing 9.7% to more than $1.9 billion.
But like many cable operators it continues to see erosion for its video
subscribers, losing 8,000 in the period. In the period quarter, Cablevision lost more customers -- 35,000 -- amid a protracted and hard-fought carriage dispute with Fox TV stations.
For its
triple-play packages, things looked better. While the company lost 8,000 video customers, the company added 32,000 high-speed data and 40,000 voice lines. This was a net total of 6,000 homes and
businesses that received at least one of Cablevision's services -- video, voice or broadband. Cablevision now has 3.658 million total customers.
James Dolan, president and chief executive
officer of Cablevision Systems Corp, stated: "We remain on track with our planned spinoff of Rainbow, which we continue to believe will also be beneficial for shareholders." Investors were relatively
unmoved on the day. Midday trading of Cablevision Systems stock was down 76 cents to $34.51.