A combination of a tough economy, the end of promotional sign-up periods, and service provider competition contributed to a third-quarter loss of 275,000 basic video subs at Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), a healthy cut above the 189,000 losses that Wall Street was expecting.

Comcast has shed about 622,000 video subs so far this year. Despite those losses, third-quarter video ARPU (average revenue per unit) rose 10.4 percent, to $129.75, as the customers that continued to stay on opted for advanced service tiers and products.

Comcast president Neil Smit said on this morning's call that 42 percent of those third-quarter video losses were basic subscribers. As for the budding "cord-cutting" trend, he said a "small number of customers" are opting to get video over the air, while the effect from over-the-top, broadband-fed services remained relatively negligible.

Comcast gained in all other aspects of its subscription business, including high-speed Internet, voice, and digital video, though the rate of growth is showing signs of slowing. Business services were once again a bright spot, with revenues rising 54.4 percent, to $333 million, in the period. (See Comcast Chases Big[ger] Business .)

Table 1: Q2 Sub Counts

	Q3 2009	Q3 2010	Cumulative Sub Total (End of Q3)
Total video net adds	-132,000	-275,000	22.93 million
Digital video adds	+463,000	+219,000	19.45 million
High-speed Internet adds	+361,000	+249,000	16.69 million
Digital voice adds	+375,000	+228,000	8.35 million
Source: Comcast

On the financial front, Comcast beat analyst expectations and posted better year-on-year revenues, but saw profits decline in part to costs tied to its pending acquisition of NBC Universal .

Table 2: Financial Snapshot

	Q3 2009	Q3 2010	Change (%)
Revenues ($B)	8.45	9.48	+12%
Net Income ($B)	0.944	0.867	-8%
EPS ($)	0.33	0.31	-6%
Source: Comcast

Table 3: The Street Vs. Comcast

	Analysts' Consensus Estimate Q3 2010	Actual Q3 2010
Revenues ($B)	9.36	9.48
EPS ($)	0.30	0.31
Source: Comcast and Thomson Reuters

CDN expansion
Although Comcast's core video sub base continues to erode, the MSO is still investing in and expanding the reach of its video-optimized content distribution network (CDN). (See Comcast's 'Project Infinity' Takes Flight .)

Initially targeted at traditional video-on-demand (VoD) services fed to set-top boxes, the CDN, which today reaches about 20 percent of Comcast's footprint, presently has the capacity to offer about 70,000 hours of content, but currently provides access to roughly 25,000 video "choices," including 11,000 movies.

"By the end of this year a majority of our markets will have this level of choice," Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said.

To help customers search and discover all that VoD content, he said Comcast is on track to launch its Web-based Xfinity Remote later this year. That product, which will run on Web browsers and Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPads and iPhones, will eventually support Android-based devices, as well, Roberts said. (See To Xfinity... & Beyond! and CableLabs Preps iPad App Framework .)

"We're excited about the iPad," Roberts said, adding that it gives Comcast "a chance to start from scratch" when it comes to the development of video guides and navigation tools.

Other nuggets from today's call:

Comcast has deployed Docsis 3.0 to 83 percent of its footprint, and has made its new 105Mbit/s (downstream) tier available to 25 million homes. (See Comcast's Target: 105-Meg D3 Downstream .)

The MSO has completed its all-digital/analog reclamation initiative in about 65 percent of its footprint, and has deployed more than 15 million Digital Terminal Adapter (DTA) devices in support of it so far. (See Comcast's $1B Bandwidth Plan .)

Even with the surge of over-the-top traffic from sources such as Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX), Smit said the MSO remains "comfortable" with its current monthly consumption cap of 250 gigabytes, noting that the average consumption for subs is in the range of 2GB to 4GB. (See Comcast Draws the Line at 250GB.)

— Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable