Despite this rise, the Philadelphia-based giant found itself in a financial bunker, reporting a loss of $106.8million (B117.7m) during the nine months, owing largely to expensive upgrades on 95 percent of its cable TV network.
However, Comcast did consolidate its position behind AT&T with the quarterly addition of 243,000 digital cable subscribers, giving it a digital total of 2.12 million, up 65 percent on last September. Overall, Comcast has 8.44 million subscribers, around half that of leader AT&T.
Furthermore, Brian Roberts, the president of Comcast, claimed the company’s content businesses “delivered the fastest growth rates in our company” and drove subscription rates. Its content businesses not only included the Golf Channel but also E! Networks, Comcast-Spectacor and Comcast SportsNet.
Solid growth in carriage continued to drive the results of E! Networks and The Golf Channel, contributing to double-digit increases in revenue and operating cash flow for both cable networks. For the nine months of 2001, Comcast's content business segment recorded revenues of $578m (B637.3m), up 16.1 percent and operating cash flow of $138.1m (B152.3m), up 24.3 percent.
