Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE:TWC) has posted earnings. Revenues for the third quarter rose 25% ($792 million) over the third quarter of 2006 to $4.0 billion, and earnings were listed as $0.25 on basic and diluted earnings. First Call shows estimates at $0.27 EPS and $4.06 billion revenues.

The stock is up at the open. As of 9:45 am, it is at $27.88, a gain of 33 cents or 1.2%.

The company still reports on an OIBDA basis: Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization ("OIBDA") climbed 28% and operating income grew 24% over Q3 2006; OIBDA rose 12% and operating income grew 14% over Pro Forma Q3 2006.

This was a record quarterly net gain of 275,000 Digital Phone Subscribers that fueled the largest ever quarterly net increase of 220,000 Triple Play Subscribers. If you want to break it down by net additions, this is a total of revenue generating units having reached 522,000 net additions in the quarter.

Subscription revenues increased 25% ($749 million) to $3.8 billion; video revenues grew 21% ($440 million) to $2.5 billion, reflecting continued penetration of digital video services and video price increases; High-speed data revenues rose 26% ($197 million) to $942 million; Advertising revenues increased 24% ($43 million) to $221 million.

Unfortunately, these numbers are all skewed due to a large Kansas City pool of customers being transferred in the quarter.

There are several reports that the HBO unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) might launch an Internet TV channel. In fact, some HBO content is already available online. Some of it is legal, but much of it is not.

The Financial Times noted that the Internet channel would be available only to broadband subscribers and would allow customers to click a branded menu and download the HBO content they wish to view. The article also noted that HBO's CEO Chris Albrecht said the company was in talks with cable operators.

MarketWatch has also reported this, although it cites the Financial Times. Business Week too ran an online story discussing the opportunity for AOL's In2TV, along with other online video providers, to do this.

CNNMoney.com, a Time Warner property, also used this same Financial Times reference. CNNMoney looks like it was running this from Reuters, but as it is the legitimate arm of TWX in the online financial news (along with AOL Money & Finance) and not a blogger site, this report could have more credence.

Whenever you see reports like this, what you usually think is that the company has decided to leak some potential news to see how it is received. That is one of the oldest and cheapest ways to see the reaction to a product launch or initiative, and it costs the company next to nothing. If something is getting rotten feedback, they can kill the initiative and then say they didn't have any formal plans; if the reaction is strong and suggests the initiative will be a revenue generator, then the company moves ahead with a focus group.

If you think of the potential advertising revenues that HBO could take in incrementally for nearly free, this makes sense. Now the real question is just what the actual content would be. As long as they don't cannibalize new content, this makes perfect sense and could be another incremental income source.