The cable cowboys are riding high again.
The nation’s two biggest cable providers reported strong results on Thursday, fueled by new high-speed Internet customers who came at the expense of their telecom-company competition.
Time Warner Cable reported its biggest jump in broadband additions since the first quarter of 2008, adding a stunning 269,000 data customers — around 90,000 more than analysts expected.
For the first time, the company counted more Internet customers than cable-TV subscribers, or 11.358 million versus 11.163 million, through the end of March. The firm has 14 million customers total when phone service is included.
Analysts also cheered smaller losses on the TV side. Under relatively new CEO Rob Marcus, TWC lost just 34,000 in the first quarter.
Time Warner Cable, based in New York, is set to join forces with No. 1 Comcast through a blockbuster $45 billion merger.
Comcast had a similarly bullish quarter for broadband. The Philadelphia-based company added 383,000 Internet subscribers, for a total of 21 million. That compares with 22.6 million TV customers at the end of the first quarter.
Meanwhile, telecom rival Verizon reported its worst quarter ever for its FIOS TV service, which had been grabbing share from cable companies.
Growth in the first quarter slowed significantly after Verizon jacked up prices.
Verizon FIOS garnered just 98,000 broadband subscribers, down from 188,000 a year ago. Fios TV grew by just 57,000, compared with 169,000 in the same period a year earlier.
Verizon’s chief financial officer, Francis Shammo, said the company was a victim of bad weather — even though that didn’t seem to have any impact on its cable rivals.
“We had one of the worst winters on record, and people did not want us in their houses to install FIOS,” he said during a call to discuss results.
TWC’s Marcus argued that the company’s own efforts prevented customers from defecting in FIOS markets.
“We are well on our way to achieving our challenge of winning back half a million DSL customers from the telcos by April of next year.”