Insight Communications had strong earnings in Q1, Pres. Dinni Jai...

numbers mark a turnaround for Insight, which claims more than 1.3 million subscribers in the Midwest, executives said. Insight, which operates cable systems in a joint venture with Comcast, achieved the turnaround by focusing on high-speed Internet and service bundles, Jain said. Insight doesn’t plan to bring a network PVR to market until results of Cablevision tests of the product are clear, he said. Insight has laid much of the groundwork for VoIP, and is planning to roll out the service 2nd half, Jain said. Boosting Insight’s marketing budget has fueled subscriber growth, Jain said: “We were very much underspending our brethren in the cable industry on sales and marketing. We made the decision to… dial up the sales and marketing staff.” Analysts suggested reduced marketing from DirecTV and EchoStar may have helped Insight’s gains, but Jain said that is hard to gauge: “It doesn’t feel like the satellite companies have pulled back from marketing. They're still putting a lot of money into print and TV.” This year, Comcast and the Carlyle Group, Insight’s majority owner, are allowed to trigger dissolution of the partnership, essentially splitting Insight’s debt and assets between the 2 companies, analysts on the call noted. There has not been any movement toward dissolution, said Jain, and even if something occurred today, the company couldn’t be wound up before late 2007.