Time Warner Cable's Q4 Has Some Analysts Wondering, Who Needs Comcast?

Time Warner Cable managed to surprise a lot of analysts on Jan 29 with fourth quarter results that trounced expectations for the company and caused some to speculate that TWC could thrive even in the absence of a Comcast merger.

The probability of a Comcast-TWC merger, once thought as a given, has now become increasingly cloudy as the government flexes its muscles. TWC grew both triple play and broadband customers. Now, that’s not to say everything is roses and bunny rabbits for TWC -- residential services revenue was up just 0.5 percent in the period. Average monthly programming costs per video subscriber increased 12.5 percent in the fourth quarter. Time Warner Cable is far from perfect. But if it can keep up this subscriber momentum it will be handing off a much better company to Comcast than the one it agreed to sell them in February 2014.