• by Wayne Friedman , April 26, 2012

Bigger revenues from broadband and lesser business from its traditional cable TV operations continues to be the trend for Time Warner Cable -- and a host of other cable operators.

Time Warner's first-quarter broadband business witnessed almost a 10% gain to nearly $1.2 billion. Video business grew 2% to $2.7 billion. But the company lost almost 100,000 customers. Time Warner improved its revenue per subscriber by around 4%. 

But more than compensating for that, its overall customer base -- from broadband and voice -- netted 261,000 customers (as well as 1.6 million through acquisitions). That brought Time Warner's overall customers to 28.9 million.

Business services revenue grew 38% million to $429 million coming from higher revenue gains in voice services, wholesale data for wireless-phone providers and high-speed data subscriptions 

Local cable advertising sales improved 7% to $211 million.

Looking to boost advertising sales and its video customer based in Los Angeles, the second-largest U.S. market, chief executive Glenn Britt said it would seek sports rights to the Los Angeles Dodgers after the team's deal ends through the 2013 season with Fox. Time Warner recently acquired the television rights to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Overall, programming costs are expected to increase by up to 9%. Company-wide business net profits grew 18% to $382 million with revenues rising 6.4% to $5.13 billion.