Comcast Good News:

Showing some signs of economic recession, Comcast Corp’s first quarter profit rose more than 5%, thanks to its growing triple play products, and cut back on capital spending.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable television operator, says that $ 778 million compared with $ 738 million in the first quarter of 2008. Revenue increased to $ 8.84 billion from $ 8.39 billion – a 5% rise. Analysts expect a slightly less, only $ 8.76 billion in revenue and about the same first-quarter 2008 net income.

Package with three to play – digital TV, Internet, and phone – Comcast shows progress. Twenty-four percent of consumers now take all three products versus 18% in the first quarter 2008.

Comcast added 329,000 high-speed Internet customers in the quarter, up more than the addition of the estimated 236,000. Comcast said that 298,000 digital-telephone subscribers signed up during the first quarter. This is additional to the 344,000 phone on the fourth quarter.

Basic cable customers continue to decline, while digital customers has grown. Basic cable subscribers fell by 78,000 in the last three months, some estimates say the number of primary schools by 233,000 subscribers in the quarter ended Dec 31. Digital cable added 288,000 customers in the first quarter. Some 247,000 customers signed up for digital services in the fourth quarter of 2008.