Latest Headlines on OCRegister.com
[x] Close
The Gadgetress ~ TV, mobile and Internet: Covering technology's monthly bill
« Previous Post
Next Post »

Time Warner Cable losing lots of money, cuts jobs

February 4th, 2009, 12:33 pm · 6 Comments · posted by

By pushing digital TV to customers and raising prices, Time Warner Cable made a bit more money last year than the previous year. Revenues rose 8 percent to $17.2 billion.

But cable customers who are feeling the pinch on their own wallet shouldn’t get irate just yet. After taxes and other costs, the nation’s second largest cable TV company posted a $7.3 billion net loss for the year, compared to a profit of $1.1 billion in the prior year. To eliminate costs, Time Warner plans to cut 1,250 jobs, or 3 percent of its workforce. 

A huge chunk of the $7.3 billion loss occurred in the fourth quarter last year, when Time Warner realized its assets were worth about $15 billion less than it thought. Other contributions to the heavy loss: $367 million for its investment in Clearwire Corp., $14 million to separate from parent Time Warner expected in March and a $13 million loss on the sale of cable systems. For the fourth quarter, ended Dec. 31, the company reported a net loss of $8.2 billion, or $8.36 per share.

Minus those, Time Warner Cable had a net income of 23-cents per share. 

Time Warner Cable’s CEO Glenn Britt acknowledged that the company isn’t immune to the down economy – it lost 119,000 basic-video subscribers during the quarter. He said, “… We remain confident that our strong subscription relationships will enable us to weather these pressures better than many businesses.”

Time Warner Cable is splitting off from parent company Time Warner at the end of March. Read Time Warner Cable’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2008 financial report HERE.

Time Warner Cable snapshot Dec. 2008 3Q to 4Q change
Basic video subscribers 13,069,000 -119,000
Digital video subscribers 8,627,000 44,000
Internet subscribers 8,444,000 124,000
Digital phone subscribers 3,747,000 130,000

Recent headlines:

ADVERTISEMENT

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Reader Comments
Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement.
  1. Keep it civil and stay on topic.
  2. No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks.
  3. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked.

 6 Comments

  • Al says:
    February 5, 2009 at 12:39 pm

    Hmmm. Interesting, 15 Billion less worth that though? oops! I thought my house was worth 15 Billion dollars. Then someone told me the bad news.

    A Note: Road Runners new email and webpage is pretty good – some effort went into that.

  • Joe B says:
    February 9, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    TW is a scam, Basically your being charged $120/month to watch annoying commercials. They charge you rental fee for the remote. Talk about nickle and dime last time I checked the remote is part of the box. How can you separate them and charge rental fee for both. Scam. Time Warner Cable is a big scam. I’m going to OTA.

  • Trish says:
    February 11, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    Good. Southern California’s Leading Cable provider is going down. Personally, with the economy the way it is, and job losses, people are pinching their pennies, and keeping a watchful eye on their finances. Having cable T.V. isn’t a necessity. Food, shelter and clothing are.

  • DT says:
    February 12, 2009 at 12:35 pm

    It’s about time! First they give you a great deal that lasts 6 months and they jack it back up without telling you. Be careful!!! The deal that you received when you sign on won’t last forever. They are not the only cable provider, so I’m looking to switch.

  • I hate TWC says:
    February 16, 2009 at 1:21 am

    I’m going back to newer over the air antenna that is available at Wal-Mart. Not the cheapo Philips brand. This one is about $70 but gets you almost every broadcast channel in SoCal. I’ll have HD, and I won’t have MTV or any other cable shows. But, I’ve learned to love the many public access channels from the universities and the local HD stations. I’ll miss the FOX HD. But, I’m not willing to pay the kind of money the cable company wants for this service. I’m happy with free TV.

    Now if I can get a cheaper and faster Internet than RoadRunner, that would be cool. The basic 6 megabits seems OK and is better than ATT’s 1.5, the only two choices here,

    I do have T-Mobile at home for $10 a month for phone service and that’s great. My daughter has the cell phone account. It allows unlimited nationwide calling to any number 24 x 7.

  • bpsqwerty says:
    March 14, 2009 at 9:17 am

    cable sucks

    if you’re going to subscribe to cable channels just go with Direct TV or DIsh. anything else is insanity

SEO Powered by Platinum SEO from Techblissonline