Fresh off its split from big-daddy Time Warner, Time Warner Cable announced this morning that the first three months of the year haven’t been too shabby.

The nation’s second largest cable TV company reported  $184 million in net income in the first quarter 2009, down 31 percent from the year ago’s $266 million. Revenues, however, grew 4.9 percent to $4.4 billion from $4.2 billion the prior year.

What may surprise some readers is that Time Warner has added 36,000 video subscribers since December, ending the quarter with 13.1 million. Most of the growth came from the 121,000 new digital TV subscribers, a service Time Warner is pushing to customers in Orange County in order to unify operations. Currently, a chunk of customers are still basic video subscribers and pay $17/month — and possibly even less — for broadcast cable.

The company also managed to lure more customers to bundles, especially its triple-play package of TV, Internet and telephone service. While Time Warner lost 125,000 customers for its single TV service, the losses were offset by a gain of 60,000 customers of its double-play pack and 146,000 customers for its triple-play pack.

Overall, the total number of subscribers climbed 81,000 to 14.7 million, from 14.6 million in December.

While the number of customers has increased, the cable company’s penetration rates continued to decline. In the communities where service is available, 48.7 percent of households ordered Time Warner TV services, slightly down from the 48.8 percent penetration rate in December. But compare that to December 2007 when video penetration rates were at 50 percent. For the quarter, penetration rates for Internet, telephone and digital video are slightly up.

After acquiring Comcast and Adelphia customers in 2007, Time Warner Cable became known for mass confusion and customer discontent in Orange County as customer service reps had to learn four different program guides and various pricing by city. The company has been working on streamlining operations, although it recently lost its president in Orange County.

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