• by Wayne Friedman , February 2, 2007

For a second day in a row, a major media company showed big financial growth. The catch: though Comcast Corp.'s quarterly profits tripled, its shares fell as it announced higher-than-expected spending plans for 2007.

Comcast said fourth-quarter net profit rose to $390 million from $133 million a year earlier. Revenue moved at a slowly pace, comparatively, just 30% to just over $7 billion. Comcast had been forecasting revenue growth of more than 11% in 2007.

On Wednesday, Time Warner showed healthy growth, but it got the cold shoulder from investors, losing a bit of ground during day trading.

Comcast is projected to spend about a $1 billion more than expected, upward of $5.7 billion. In early trading yesterday, Comcast shares fell over 3%.

Despite near-term stock market drop, Jim Cramer, host of CNBC's "Stop Trading!" and stock analyst of The Street.com, says the expenditures will pay off big time for Comcast down the road. He recommended the company as a buy.

The glitch in the stock price was the only bad news coming out of Comcast in some time. The stock has climbed more than 70% in the last 12 months. As a leader in its industry, Comcast delivered fringe benefits for other cable companies, which saw their stocks take an upturn.

Like Time Warner, Comcast has been betting the house on selling three main communication services in the home: video, high-speed Internet and phone lines. Analysts feel that the entire cable industry's efforts in selling the so-called "triple play" are working--besting sales efforts of satellite TV and the telcos.

In the fourth quarter, Comcast said it signed up 613,000 digital video subscribers and added a net 508,000 digital phone customers and 488,000 high speed Internet subscribers.

Even in regard to its original core business--basic video business -- the company said it had its best results in some time, adding 110,000 new customers in the fourth quarter.