General Cable extends network

Losses at General Cable, the UK cable operator, deepened in the first half of 1996 to pounds 12.6m from pounds 10.9m last year, as the company continued to build its extensive network. But Sir Anthony Cleaver, company chairman, said that average revenues per line were being maintained at the level achieved in the first quarter of this year.

General Cable also welcomed the Office of Fair Trading's ruling on satellite broad- caster BSkyB's supply of programming to the cable industry. Sir Anthony said that cable-exclusive programming, offering products not available on satellite, and additional ATM switching technology, would improve the company's penetration of the market. The new pricing regime would also enable cable operators to undercut BT.

Comcast Partners, meanwhile, reported consolidated revenues of pounds 11.8m in the six months to June, up from pounds 653,000 last time. The consolidated operating cash-flow deficit was pounds 3.6m.

Comcast UK's cable lines currently pass more than 837,000 homes, and its cable-TV subscribers have increased by 38 per cent, the residential telephony subscribers by 55 per cent and the business telephony subscribers by 39 per cent. The company has interests in four integrated cable television, residential telephony and business telephony systems in the UK; together these could serve approximately 1.6 million homes.