Nov. 4--Comcast Corp. said today that, in the third quarter, it added 824,000 new phone and high-speed Internet customers and lost 132,000 cable-TV customers, the best performance for the year.

The company's revenues rose 3 percent to $8.8 billion in the third quarter, slightly below the year-to-date revenue growth of 4.3 percent.

Profits rose 22.5 percent, to $944 million, compared with $771 million in the year-ago period. Earnings were per share were 33 cents, compared with 26 cents a year ago.

Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts, in a morning conference call, declined to directly address speculation that cable giant Comcast was in advanced talks to acquire a controlling interest in NBC Universal Inc. from General Electric Co.

Roberts said any deal would provide "meaningful value to shareholders" and provide the company "benefits of scale."

Sources say that GE and Comcast continue to talk and that a deal could be announced within a couple weeks but is still contingent on a decision by French media giant Vivendi.

Comcast chief financial officer Michael Angelakis noted in the call that the company -- which employs about 100,000 -- was evaluating its workforce with the intent of cutting costs and that he expects a severance charge in the fourth quarter.

He did not say how many jobs could be eliminated.

He also said local cable advertising recovered from its sharply lower rates in the first and second quarters and declined about 10 percent, compared with the year-ago third quarter.

-----

To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com/inquirer.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NASDAQ-NMS:CMCSA, NYSE:GE, OtherOTC:VIVEF,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.