Time Warner reports $16 billion loss (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

Marketwatch.com ^ | February 4, 2009 | Staff

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Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday reported a $16 billion loss in the fourth quarter after writing down the value of intangible assets held by the company's cable operations, AOL and Time Inc.

Time Warner (TWX) lost $16 billion, or $4.47 a share, compared with a profit of $1.03 billion, or 28 a share in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding the charges, Time Warner would have earned 23 cents a share in the latest three months.

Revenue fell 3% to $12.3 billion.

The company was expected to earn 27 cents a share on revenue of $12.7 billion, according to a poll of analysts taken by Thomson First Call.

Earnings for 2009 are seen "about flat" compared to 2008 results.

"We're making progress at Time Warner toward our goals of becoming a more content-focused company and delivering increasing returns to our stockholders. Last year, our priorities were to rationalize our structure and improve our operating performance," said Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes.

The results echo a dismal earnings report issued Tuesday by Walt Disney Co. (DIS) , which posted a 32% decline in profit on decreased DVD and advertising sales, and added more fuel to Wall Street's concerns that no relief is in sight for media companies in 2009. See full story. At AOL, revenue dropped to $968 million from $1.25 billion.

Advertising revenue fell 18%, continuing a long slide. Ad revenue at AOL grew 46% in the third quarter of 2006. By last year's third quarter, it had narrowed to 13% growth, followed by 10% in the fourth quarter of 2007, 1% in the first three months of 2008, 2% in the second quarter and 6% in the third quarter.

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ping

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http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/02/03/wapo-no-more-freelance-pay-for-staffers/
WaPo: No More “Freelance” Pay for Staffers

http://www.observer.com/2009/media/beast-roared-while
The Beast That Roared (for a While!)

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http://cancelthebee.blogspot.com/
Modesto Bee shrinking... management proposal calls for cutting weekly page count by as many as 16 pages

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http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090204/na_us_earns_time_warner.html?.v=1
Time Warner swings to 4Q loss on hefty writedown

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123370933597245913.html
Video Sites Entice Users To Stay and Play

[RSmithOpt]

Folks can look for a 35% increase in their monthly premiums for basic cable next quarter....it’s the American way, ya know.

[Freee-dame]

Time magazine is a propaganda tool for the DNC. I don’t think they care if they make a profit on it or not. They have the presidency and the congress and soon the courts. They will live on with the pork (”stimulus”) that comes their way.

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TIME

"TIME, oh, TIME
Where did you go
TIME, oh, good, good TIME
Where did you go"

[neb52]

I wonder if they will be breaking back apart or just consolidating the advertising and media content provider (AOL and Cable Channels). I wouldn’t proclaim their death, yet. I think this was a one time big write down to go a head with a “fresh start”. Their service provider (Cable/Internet/Phone) end probably still makes good money.

[abb]

The cable/internet component (TWC) is being spun off from the rest of the company (TWX). The old company will eventually fade away with the rest of the dinosaurs.

[SamAdams76]

Good riddance. Cable TV is such a wasteland that if it wasn't for my wife's insistence on watching certain shows in realtime, I'd have cancelled it long ago. With websites like Hulu and devices like Apple TV and Tivo, you can already stream most TV content off the internet to watch later commercial free.

Bruce Springsteen did get it right at least in one song ("57 Channels and Nothing On"). In fact, these days, there are about 400 channels and pretty much nothing on. If I have to find something worth my time on the cable, I usually end up watching "Cops" re-runs or something on the National Geographic or History channel. The rest of it is pretty much pure garbage.

So I'm hoping that the price of cable TV continues to rise so that I can eventually convince my wife to dump this service and then I'll rig up a video box that will capture off the internet for free the small amount of content that is actually worth watching. About the only thing I will really miss if I cancel cable TV is live NFL football. But getting my Sunday afternoons back, I can get used to that. I'll take more Sunday afternoon hikes and get some more book reading done.

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Turn Back The Hands of TIME

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http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/media/e3i9f631ea10a4997bce3019d8872f32908
Disney Profit Dives
Iger: ‘Very significant’ cost cutting on the way

http://www.magazinedeathpool.com/
Arizona Woman: RIP February 2009

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http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/
Sheer Idiocy

New word! “Printies”
http://recoveringjournalist.typepad.com/recovering_journalist/2008/08/beware-the-printies.html
Beware the Printies

[relictele]

I don’t understand the Disney dive considering every man woman and child in America seems to have multiple copies of High School Musical and Camp Rock.

On the other hand they have mined their back catalogue for decades now with ‘limited’ releases of their classics. It may be possible that everybody who wants a copy of Cinderella finally has one.

[RSmithOpt]

Agree...I'm OTA now ditching DirecTV after 11.5 years. They're are doing some serious balling (crying) now as it will be 1 yr nuttin' but OTA come mid-April. I saw this economic downturn (soon to be Depression) coming summer 2007.

We have a local oldies sub channel that shows A-Team, Knight Rider, Air Wolf, Mangnum, Rockford Files, weekly in the evenings. Also, Emergency, Adam-12, and lots of westerns on the weekend afternoons......so, I'm happy....can get local 24hr weather on 3 subs all the time. PBS has good stuff too for DIY, Nature, etc. I love the older programs.....better scripts.

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http://www.niemanlab.org/
NewspaperProject: a wobbly kickoff

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=99628
Prime-Time TV Commercial Prices Plummet, CBS Faces Biggest Drop

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Disney is also ABC Television. Broadcast ad revenues sucketh. See link above from Media Post.

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TIME Passages

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From the article:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=99628

“The prime-time unit price deflation is being caused by a number of factors, says TargetCast Senior Vice President, Director of Broadcast Gary Carr—but the two biggest factors are the economy and the networks’ declining share of TV audience viewing.”

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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003937569
‘NYT’ Editor Reveals ‘Deadly Serious’ Discussions on Charging for Online

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003937645
AP Exec Talks Future of Newspapers with College Students

[Charles Martel]

On the other hand they have mined their back catalogue for decades now with ‘limited’ releases of their classics. It may be possible that everybody who wants a copy of Cinderella finally has one.

Yes, but will this dwindling revenue compel them to finally release a DVD of Song of the South? I can just see it now: "...this historic Disney film will be available on DVD and blu-ray for a limited time only, then Uncle Remus goes back in the vault!"

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For The Longest TIME

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http://www.slate.com/id/2210333/pagenum/all/
Alms for the Press?
The case against foundation ownership of the New York Times.

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http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/impressions/2009/02/02/endowed-and-out
Endowed and Out
Turning into nonprofits is not a solution for the media’s woes.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-rutten4-2009feb04,0,5630556.column

Newspapers need an antitrust exemption
An antitrust exemption would allow the industry to begin charging for the Web content that it’s now giving away.

[relictele]

SOTS is readily available from the usual dodgy spots on the Internet. Disney doesn’t want the headache of releasing it - cowards.

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Can't Find The TIME

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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/forestwebs_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003937324
FORESTWEB Report: U.S. Dailies’ Newsprint Consumption Falls by 1 Million Tonnes in 2008

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/951daaec-f25c-11dd-9678-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F951daaec-f25c-11dd-9678-0000779fd2ac.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fjournalism.org%2Fdailybriefings&nclick_check=1
News Corp set to trim newspaper jobs in US and UK

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/02/03/DD5T15LKJ2.DTL
Is Katie Couric coming or going?

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1876945,00.html?xid=rss-business
False Hopes for Internet Profits

[neb52]

NFL is the only thing that I miss be Cableless. I think, including the SB, I only watched two or three games this year.

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"By the end of this decade or shortly thereafter, television networks as we know them today will cease to exist. They will be just another url on the world wide web competing against millions of others."

"Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded."

Walter Abbott, (b. 1950), Media observer and commentator

[neb52]

With online advertisement falling and readership rejection to pay monthly/yearly fees for online content what is the future for news? All news can’t be voluntary blogging?

[Milhous]

Beware the Printies

It's bad enough that newspapers are seeing their core business disintegrate and having trouble transitioning into their digital future. But they're also being held back by continuing and chronic problems with old-school managers who are clinging to the print model they grew up on and just won't let go.

Call these dangerous dinosaurs Printosaurus Rex. Or, for short: Printies. Printies exist throughout the newspaper business, but they're most pernicious in the executive suite, where they continue to hold back intelligent, aggressive digital development. You know the type: They rhapsodize about how nice it is to be able to hold news in their hands as they read it. They tend to wear expensive suits and drive nice cars, paid for in better times. They declaim about never reading blogs. They may have a Facebook profile–but no friends. (But they don't hesitate to hold forth on their "expertise" about Facebook.) They spend money on inane print promotions but don't bother to market their Web sites.

They print out their e-mail.

Rimshot to Potts for his comic timing. ROTFL. An old school client of mine, wealthy enough to buy decorative art in the six figure range, also prints out his email. My wealthy client's old school ways help me better understand billionaires such as Zell, who's DNA totally blocks any thought of a world without newspaper.

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All news can’t be voluntary blogging?

I think it can, to a large degree. Human beings have been sharing information since before the invention of newspapers, tv, radio, whatever. It's in our genes.

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TIME (Clock Of The Heart)

[Charles Martel]

SOTS is readily available from the usual dodgy spots on the Internet. Disney doesn’t want the headache of releasing it - cowards.

Yeah, I know. Disney did actually release a DVD of it a few years back, but not in North America.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Looks like they need to get busier writing articles telling us all how to live our lives.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Folks can look for a 35% increase in their monthly premiums for basic cable next quarter....

Then, they can start looking for replacements for 35% of their existing customer base.

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Profile of TIME

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

"Scrub the operation. This one's too far gone."

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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090203/FREE/902039964
Media bigwigs don’t see ad turnaround until 2010

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02042009/business/bloomberg_to_cut_tv__radio_staff_153426.htm
BLOOMBERG TO CUT TV, RADIO STAFF

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090203/ap_on_hi_te/tec_techbit_amazon_kindle
Analyst estimates Amazon sold 500K Kindles in 2008

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123362056606541549.html
HarperCollins Expands Into Video Books for Download

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Media_economy_57/Buyers_expect_upfront_to_be_down_a_tad.asp
Buyers expect upfront to be down a tad

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02042009/gossip/pagesix/more_mags_face_the_ax__153495.htm
MORE MAGS FACE THE AX?

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02042009/business/no_people_at_wal_mart_153421.htm
NO PEOPLE AT WAL-MART
BIG MAG TITLES BECOME VICTIMS OF WHOLESALER STANDOFF

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http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090204/ARTICLE/902040335/2107/BUSINESS?Title=Herald_Tribune_cuts_jobs_and_some_home_delivery
Herald-Tribune cuts jobs and some home delivery

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http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={E3F5B89D-CC21-4544-A787-C78F845DF3E9}&siteid=nbih
Time Warner CFO: Turner ad sales seen flat with 1Q ‘07

[Luke21]

Political correctness doesn’t allow a lot to shown or broadcast, so we have unending infomertials. Almost anything from the old days offends a pet liberal group. They chop the shows to shreds and they still offend.

Last year, one of the tiny networks put “Daniel Boone,” the old Fess Parker show on for a few weeks. Their disclaimer took forever to read...”This was produced as a children’s show and may not properly represent the historic accuracy of these situations.”

We are so offended by everything that we show nothing.

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http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={06E8C413-B90A-4467-AF69-63C695A39DFD}&siteid=nbih

Time Warner CFO: Time Inc. print ad sales down worse than 4Q
By David B. Wilkerson
Last update: 11:23 a.m. EST Feb. 4, 2009

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Time Warner Inc.’s (TWX) publishing unit Time Inc. is seeing advertising sales that are down more than the 22% year-over-year decline that occurred in the fourth quarter, Chief Financial Officer John Martin said Wednesday.

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TIME Is Tight

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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003937666
News Corp. to Cut 25 at ‘WSJ,’ Says ‘Financial Times’

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003937688
Maine’s Highest Court Questions Publication of Legal Notices

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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Earnings-Preview-McClatchy-apf-14238301.html
Earnings Preview: McClatchy faces pressure in 4Q
McClatchy to report 4th-quarter earnings as advertising revenue declines and debt looms