Time Warner Cable subs, profit beat expectations

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Cable Inc, the second largest U.S. cable operator, added more subscribers than expected in the first quarter, sending shares up 6.4 percent.

While profit fell due to higher programing costs and expenses related to the company's separation from Time Warner Inc, after backing out special items, earnings also beat Wall Street expectations.

Time Warner Cable said on Wednesday it added 36,000 basic video subscribers during the quarter, when most analysts had expected it to lose customers due to the difficult economic environment.

Analysts at Bernstein Research had expected Time Warner to lose 51,000 basic subscribers, for example.

Time Warner Cable also added 121,000 digital video subscribers, 225,000 high-speed Internet subscribers, and 166,000 phone subscribers. These additions also beat forecasts by analysts at Bernstein Research and others.

"They seemed to have really turned things round during the quarter," said Thomas Eagan, analyst at Collins Stewart. "I think this portends positively for Comcast as well."

Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable operator, reports its earnings on Thursday.

These are the first set of financial results by Time Warner Cable since it completely separated from Time Warner Inc on March 12. The cable company paid out a cash dividend of $10.9 billion to shareholders last month as part of its separation transaction.

Net profit fell to $164 million, or 48 cents per share, from $242 million, or 74 cents per share, a year ago.

Excluding items such as restructuring charges, profit per share was 75 cents, beating the average analyst forecast of 58 cents, according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue rose 5 percent to $4.4 billion, in line with Wall Street expectations.

Video programing expenses rose 8 percent to $1.0 billion.

Shares of Time Warner Cable rose 6.4 percent to $29 in premarket trading.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing by Derek Caney)