Comcast 3Q profit declines, still beats Street

PHILADELPHIA Comcast (CMCSA) posted a drop in third-quarter earnings that was milder than expected as its NBCUniversal media subsidiary overcame the absence of Olympics programming with better movie studio performance and upbeat spending at its theme parks.

On the pay TV side, more consumers opted for high-definition and digital video recorder service. That, combined with a price hike, more than offset the loss of 129,000 video subscribers in the quarter.

The nation's top cable TV provider said net income fell 18 percent to $1.73 billion, or 65 cents per share. That beat the 60 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue dropped 2 percent to $16.15 billion, short of the $16.25 billion analysts expected. Excluding the $1.19 billion in Olympics ad sales last year, revenue would have grown 5 percent.

Its shares rose almost 3 percent in premarket trading.