WavePhore Inc, provider of data broadcasting services, has reported a third-quarter net loss of $2.9m on revenue up 25% at $6.5m, compared to a loss of $1.9m a year ago. The Phoenix, Arizona-based company has never been profitable and has said it doesn’t expect to be until the end of 1998. The quarter was hit by increased expenses related to the roll out of the WaveTop broadcast PC service – a push technology-based service that will deliver information and entertainment to home PCs over unused portions of television signals. The investment in WaveTop negatively impacted the bottom line by $1.0m for the quarter ($0.06 per share) and $3.7m for the nine months. Newscast, the company’s flagship product, is a wireless service that uses FM signals to broadcast business information to subscribers’ PCs. WavePhore also has a web-based version of Newscast – the result of the company’s acquisition of Paracel Online Systems Inc last May (CI No 3,157). Newscast currently delivers information to roughly 160,000 desktops in the US, Canada and Europe. Nine- month net loss was $16.2m on revenue up 13.7% at $15.7m, against a loss of $6.9m last year. The nine-month results include a $6m charge related to the Paracel buy.
