Free Republic

AOL and Time Warner have finally called it quits. James Quinn looks at the souring of the dotcom match that appeared to have been made in mergers and acquisitions heaven It was an auspicious occasion, the business titans of the West standing shoulder to shoulder at the dawn of a new century. On the stage of the Shanghai International Convention Centre, in late September 1999, the crème de la crème of business achievement smiled at the hundreds of delegates, both Chinese and from around the world, who had gathered for the Fortune Global Forum. From AIG's Hank Greenberg to Viacom's...

Time magazine's August 10 edition with President Barack Obama on the cover (“Paging Dr. Obama”) trying to heal the nation in a photo illustration as a physician, wearing a white smock with a stethoscope around his neck, brings to seven the number of issues the magazine's cover has featured Obama just since November's election -- make that eight for the First Family if you add in June 1's genuflecting “The Meaning of Michelle.” Amongst the seven of President Obama: “Person of the Year” and Obama as FDR.

Time Warner (TWX Quote) said second-quarter earnings fell 34% to $519 million, or 43 cents a share, from $792 million, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings of 45 cents topped the estimates of analysts of 37 cents a share as surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Revenue in the quarter fell 9% to $6.8 billion. At Time Warner's content group, which is made up of the networks, filmed entertainment, publishing and corporate segments, revenue declined 6%. The content division saw adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization rise 4% in the period. The company said it's "on track"...

Time Warner unveiled plans Thursday to spin off AOL as an independent company, an end to the massive media media marriage formed in 2001. "We believe that a separation will be the best outcome for both Time Warner and AOL," said Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500) chief executive Jeff Bewkes, in a prepared statement. The 2001 merger between AOL and Time Warner was applauded at the time as a visionary attempt to meld old media with new media. But synergies between the two never materialized. [Snip] Bewkes said that an independent AOL will "have a better opportunity to achieve its...

Time Warner: Mag Group May Dive 30%, TV Dips Time Warner is anticipating that ad dollars at its Turner networks will fall in a mid-single-digit percentage range for the current April-June period, a top company executive said Wednesday. At the Time Inc. magazine group, a decline in the 30% range is possible. Time Warner also indicated it would be spinning off all or part of the AOL unit soon. CFO John Martin said one contributor to the expected Turner drop this quarter is a decline in international revenue. But he said that advertisers are also exercising options to cancel spending...

The city of Wilson, NC was tired of high internet, cable, and telephone prices, so they decided to do something about it. They started their own, city-owned, ISP. Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq have teamed up to convince North Carolina's legislature to propose bills outlawing community owned ISPs because the big guys cannot possibly compete.

Sue Polinsky had the first cable modem in Greensboro. Back in the late 1990s, when the Web designer found she needed more Internet speed than a telephone or DSL line could provide, she was happy to pay a premium. She’s been a Time Warner Cable customer ever since — even upgrading to the business-class service to run her company, Tech Triad, from home. But when she got wind of Time Warner’s plan to begin monitoring and capping how much data its Greensboro customers use, she said it could be summed up in one word. “Greed,” Polinsky said. “That’s all it...

The presidential candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the communist revolutionaries in El Salvador the Reagan administration battled in the 1980s, is, a Monday Washington Post story noted, “a former correspondent for CNN en Espanol.” In the March 9 article, “In El Salvador Vote, Big Opportunity for Leftists,” reporter William Booth relayed from San Salvador that the journalist-turned-politician “considers himself to be El Salvador's Barack Obama.” Booth relayed: After a 12-year civil war and a peace undermined by soaring crime, leftists in El Salvador are on the verge of completing a remarkable journey from armed struggle to...

The editors of Time Magazine make a big show of how they demand a separation of Advertising interests and Editorial as not to have any hint of impropriety. One wonders why they don't make the same separation with major investors. Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal who owns a big chunk of News Corp, also owns a big chunk of Time Magazine's parent company Time Warner. This partly explains the Middle East coverage provided by the Magazine and its sister company, CNN. The cover story of latest issue of Time Magazine, "Why Israel Can't Win" seems almost like a cheer leading section...

LOS ANGELES – "SpongeBob SquarePants" might get squeezed off Time Warner Cable. Media giant Viacom Inc. said its Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and 16 other channels will go dark for 13 million subscribers at 12:01 a.m. Thursday if a new carriage fee deal with Time Warner Cable Inc. is not agreed upon by then. The impasse would mean "SpongeBob" and other popular shows like Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" will be cut off on the nation's second-largest cable operator.

Viacom threatens to pull MTV off Time Warner CableAssociated Press - December 30, 2008 10:33 PM ET LOS ANGELES (AP) - Viacom is threatening to pull MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon and 16 other channels from Time Warner Cable if a new carriage fee deal is not agreed upon by midnight Wednesday. A Time Warner spokesman says Viacom is seeking "an exorbitant increase in their carriage fees." Viacom has asked for fee increases of between 22 and 36% per channel, adding up to tens of millions of dollars per year, an amount that Time Warner says would cause an increase...

License Plates for the Internet - The Blueprints for Obama's Assault on the Internet The report's recommendations emphasize taking away cybersecurity from DHS in order to create a special department to oversee cybersecurity. It recommends ending the division between civilian and national security systems. And calls for establishing "international norms" when it comes to the internet. And it focuses a good deal on identity verification, not just for Federal employees, but for ordinary Americans as well. The report urges a move away from passwords, and toward physical identity verification, via a device that would verify an individual's identity. And calls...

NEW YORK (AP) — You're used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance? Time Warner Cable Inc. customers — and, later, others — may have to, if the company's test of metered Internet access is successful. On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press....

Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:30pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will cut 450 jobs from New Line Cinema in a highly anticipated move following an earlier decision to fold the movie studio under the wing of Warner Bros Entertainment. About 40 of New Line's employees will be offered new jobs at Warner Bros in positions that will not displace existing Warner Bros jobs, a Time Warner spokesman said. Employees are being informed on Monday and Tuesday. About 40 to 50 existing New Line employees will remain at the division renowned for its blockbuster...

Time Warner Inc. has consolidated its Warner Bros. Entertainment and New Line Cinema, the studio behind the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, in an effort to cut costs and boost revenue. New Line Co-Chairmen Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne, two Hollywood veterans who have long been the core of the studio, will leave but are in talks for possible future business relationships with the company. The contracts of Mr. Shaye, 68 years old, and his one-time attorney Mr. Lynne, 66, are up at the end of the year. They said they would explore new entrepreneurial opportunities. They added, "New Line...

The last couple of days I've been seeing nearly constant interruptions of service, and quite a few slowdowns. I haven't changed anything here on my end. Of course, if it keeps up, I'll call customer service. I'm just wondering if I'm the only one seeing this.

If you're a Time Warner Cable subscriber, you can expect more High-Definition in the near future. Lots more. That's according to Time Warner's top executives who commented yesterday on the company's HD plans during an investors call with Wall Street analysts. COO Landel Hobbs told the analysts that the cable service now has carriage agreements with 53 high-def channels -- and deals with an additional 20 channels "pending." Hobbs said some Time Warner systems, such as Albany and San Antonio, are now offering more than 40 HD channels. But more HD channels are expected to be added soon throughout the...

Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) Inc., the world's largest media conglomerate, reported lower earnings in its fourth quarter Wednesday following a big gain in the year-ago period on the sale of AOL's online access business in Europe. Excluding the effect of that gain, earnings rose on stronger results at the company's cable TV and movie operations. Time Warner reported net income of $1.03 billion or 28 cents per share, versus $1.75 billion or 44 cents per share in the same period a year ago. Without the AOL gain a year ago and other one-time effects, the earnings were 29 cents per share...

Bay Area cable provider Comcast Corp. and San Jose-based eBay Inc. may be potential bidders for Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, as Microsoft Corp.'s offer for Yahoo Inc. threatens to knock out the two most likely suitors for the Internet unit, Pali Research said. There's a lack of buyers for AOL, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Research, said Monday in a note. Still, Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts may be interested in AOL to get its advertising network and Web site, he wrote. Roberts is unlikely to pay more than $10 billion, according to Greenfield. In 2000, AOL purchased...

Having a tornado demolish her home was bad enough. But weeks later when Ann Beam received a $2,000 cable bill for destroyed equipment, she was floored. "I just couldn't believe it," Beam said. "I was like: 'What are they thinking?"' Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland residents for equipment damaged in the Jan. 7 twister... She immediately called the cable company but a man who identified himself as a manager said there was nothing the company could do. "They said I would have to take the bill and turn it in to my insurance company," ... But her...

Time Warner Cable Tests Data-Usage Rate StructureThursday, January 17, 2008 NEW YORK — Time Warner Cable will experiment with a new pricing structure for high-speed Internet access later this year, charging customers based on how much data they download, a company spokesman said Wednesday. The company, the second-largest cable provider in the United States, will start a trial in Beaumont, Texas, in which it will sell new Internet customers tiered levels of service based on how much data they download per month, rather than the usual fixed-price packages with unlimited downloads. Company spokesman Alex Dudley said the trial was aimed...

Up to 1,000 employees on the Warner Bros. lot theoretically could be laid off anytime after Friday under federally mandated notices the studio recently distributed. The notices, or so-called WARN mailings, represent the first concrete sign that the WGA strike could trigger massive layoffs in Hollywood. A WB studio spokeswoman declined to say how many workers might be laid off or when actual pink slips would fly, but she stressed the notices were mandated under the U.S. Department of Labor's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications regulations. The WARN notices are mandated in strike situations, to give employees some advance notice...

NBC may broadcast "The Biggest Loser," but in terms of 2007 stock price performance, Time Warner ran away with that title. Of the big five entertainment conglomerates - CBS, Disney, News Corp., Time Warner and Viacom - only Viacom managed to post a share price increase this year, as uncertainty over the impact of digital delivery of content and a weakened advertising environment due to a weak economy dampened investor enthusiasm for the space. (NBC is part of General Electric and doesn't trade on its own merits like the other companies.) Time Warner took the largest broadside from jittery investors,...

For someone with a reputation for being unsentimental about his company, it was perhaps surprising that Jeffrey L. Bewkes looked to the past when he spoke at a Time Warner management retreat in Miami in late November — his first since being tapped as the company’s next chief executive. Before the top 200 executives at a ballroom in Miami’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, Mr. Bewkes invoked the legacies of Henry R. Luce and Ted Turner in ticking off the accomplishments of the assembly’s predecessors: inventing the newsmagazine (Time), and spearheading cable news (CNN) and pay television (HBO), according to three executives...

"Bewkes is not a magazine guy." Time Warner’s third quarter numbers were released recently, and while overall revenues rose nine percent over same period 2006—despite revenue declines from AOL—Time Inc.’s revenues were flat. Any gains in earnings were largely attributed to “non-magazine businesses, particularly Synapse,” a customer acquisition and management service subsidiary of Time Inc., according to company financials. The numbers form the backdrop of a pending change at the top as COO Jeffrey Bewkes is set to succeed Dick Parsons as Time Warner CEO on January 1 and ongoing speculation about whether the company will spin off one or...

Time Warner 3Q Profit Falls but Harry Potter Helps Conglomerate Meet Wall Street Expectations NEW YORK (AP) -- Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday reported a 53 percent decline in net income for the third quarter versus the same period a year ago, when results were boosted by tax and investment gains. The earnings met analyst estimates, though, as higher earnings from cable TV and movies including "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" outweighed a decline at AOL, which continued to lose subscribers as it shifts toward an online advertising model. The media conglomerate, which also owns HBO, Warner...

Dick Parsons is on the way out -- officially. Time Warner (TWX) , the world's largest media conglomerate, on Monday confirmed widespread speculation that Jeff Bewkes will take the reins from Parsons as CEO. The move is effective at the end of the year. Parsons will remain chairman of the company. The ascension of Bewkes, Time Warner's president and chief operating officer, to CEO has long been expected, but the timing was unclear. In recent weeks, speculation has heated up that the change would be in the near future. "Today's decision is the culmination of a thoughtful and disciplined process...

Jeff Bewkes is poised to take over the reigns at one of the world's largest media groups as soon as next week Richard Parsons, the chief executive of Time Warner, is poised to announce that he will hand over the top job at the CNN to Harry Potter conglomerate to longstanding number two Jeff Bewkes. The announcement of the end of the African-American’s five and a half year tenure could come as soon as next week, after the matter was discussed at a board meeting in London on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Technically, no final decision was taken...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The Supreme Court ordered Time magazine to pay $106 million in damages for defaming former Indonesian dictator Suharto by alleging his family amassed billions of dollars during his 32-year rule, officials said Monday. The May 1999 cover story in the magazine's Asian edition said much of the money had been transferred from Switzerland to Austria before Suharto stepped down amid riots and pro-democracy protests in 1998. Suharto, who said the article defamed him and the state, filed a lawsuit with the Central District Jakarta and later the Jakarta High Court, both of which ruled in Time's...

Developing.... Link to follow.

March 20, 2007 Giuliani Top Choice Among Both Moderate, Conservative Republicans Gingrich, Romney do better among conservatives than moderates by Jeffrey M. Jones GALLUP NEWS SERVICEPRINCETON, NJ -- With the 2008 Republican presidential field beginning to come into shape, there are still questions and apparent opportunities for a favorite "conservative" candidate to emerge. The three leading announced contenders -- Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney -- have taken stances in the past that are out of step, if not unpopular, with conservative voters, although all have taken recent steps to try to reassure conservatives. The key question is...

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Time Warner, the world's largest media company, is expected to post a decline in fourth-quarter profit next week on decreased revenue at AOL and difficult comparisons with a prior-year quarter that included the smash-hit movie "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Reporting results on Wednesday, Time Warner (TWX)is expected to earn 23 cents a share on revenue of $11.1 billion. A year ago, the company earned 25 cents a share on an adjusted basis, on revenue of $11.89 billion. CIBC World Markets analyst Jason Helfstein trimmed his fourth-quarter earnings forecast on Time Warner Friday, cutting the...

Nearly 7 million copies of Time magazine's annual "Person of the Year" issue are set to arrive in mailboxes and on newsstands in the next few days. The cover declares that Person to be none other than "You. Yes, you." It explains, "You control the information age. Welcome to your world." The image is of a computer with a flat screen monitor and a screen-laminate of reflective Mylar. Readers are invited to gaze Narcissus-like at their own reflection. Managing editor Richard Stengel explains the odd choice. He downloaded a video to YouTube asking for input. The responses were numerous. Within...

Former CBS chief Mel Karmazin has told reporters that he long believed - and continues to believe - that CBS and CNN should merge. Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit in New York City, Karmazin said: "I thought CBS News and CNN to this day should be combined. I was hoping that Dick [Parsons, Time Warner CEO] would buy [tri-state cable operator] Cablevision and need the cash, because Cablevision was much more strategic [to Time Warner], and then sell me CNN." "When I was [CBS] CEO, would I have liked to have owned CNN?" he asked rhetorically. "Yeah." Discussing the...

October 4, 2006 -- JUST when you thought things couldn't possibly get any more demoralizing at Time Inc., along comes news that the media giant is planning more job cuts next year. The company so far is dismissing the talk. One source said the cuts -"specifically job reductions at Time magazine" - are expected to coincide with the expiration of the current contract with the Newspaper Guild. That pact between the company and the editorial employees on the biggest New York-based magazines expires Feb. 1, 2007. The new contract, the first since an agreement went into effect in 1999, will...

COVER an industry, any industry, long enough and you will learn that the sky is always falling. Morale has never been lower, competition is beyond the pale, and the customers have lost their minds. Nowhere has the drumbeat been more persistent than in publishing. After last week, I think Chicken Little may be on to something. On Tuesday, Time Inc. announced that it was putting 18 of its 50 magazines in the United States up for sale. Given the somewhat marginal publications involved — niche magazines like Popular Science, Yachting, Transworld Skateboarding — it is not as if the company...

For most of the 20th century, under the influence of its founder, Henry R. Luce, Time magazine spoke in a single authoritative voice that reflected the world back to its readers. Now Richard Stengel, the new managing editor of Time, wants to change the metaphor. “We’ve traditionally been a mirror, and to me, we more and more have to be a lamp,” Mr. Stengel said, invoking the title of the study of Romantic literature by M. H. Abrams. “As a lamp, you’re shining a light on something.” Mr. Stengel’s plan is to fill the pages of Time with more essays...

Ever since its disastrous 2000 merger with America Online, Time Warner has been playing defense. Outside agitators like Carl Icahn have called on the media behemoth to sell or spin off units that generate cash reliably but don't offer much in the way of growth, notably AOL and the company's vast cable holdings. CEO Richard Parsons, refusing to budge from the company's conglomeration strategy, has politely demurred. But recent events suggest that Icahn and the professional noodges have focused on the wrong corporate assets. What if Time Warner sold off Time Inc., the company's mammoth magazine business? Home to such...

TIME MAGAZINE FEATURES HILLARY It is just beginning, folks. The mainstream media is going to sell foolish people on Hillary Clinton. She is in position to march into our White House. TIME MAGAZINE steps up to the plate with a Hillary story to set the stage. How many people know that Hillary's top advisor, the lovely Mandy Grunwald, is the daughter of the former TIME editor-in-chief, Henry Grunwald? How many know that her husband, Matt Cooper, works for TIME? This is incestuous and it is how the MSM is going to carry her into the White House. Wait for...

asia.news.yahoo.com Friday August 18, 4:39 AM Time Warner to Restate Earnings Time Warner Inc. said Thursday it will restate its financial results after an independent auditor found problems with the way it accounted for a number of transactions in 2000 and 2001, mainly involving online advertising. The restatement came as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over accounting problems at its America Online unit, which was announced in March of last year. The company also agreed to pay a $300 million penalty. The SEC settlement also required Time Warner to appoint an independent examiner to review...

Underperformers such as 'Poseidon' have given the studio and investors a sinking feeling. Last year Warner Bros. President Alan Horn was at the top of his game. Boy wizard Harry Potter, eccentric candy maker Willy Wonka and crime fighter Batman catapulted Warner to its most profitable year. But the hot streak ended with a thud. Not even Superman could prevent a crush of movie losses that has shaken the venerable Burbank studio and its affable leader. The costly disaster movie "Poseidon," director M. Night Shyamalan's fantasy thriller "Lady in the Water," the computer-animated "The Ant Bully" and the urban drama...

NEW YORK -- AOL said Thursday it expects to drop as many as 5,000 employees, or a quarter of its global work force, within six months as the company restructures its business to draw more online advertising dollars. The announcement came a day after the Time Warner Inc. unit said it would no longer charge high-speed Internet customers for e-mail and other services in hopes of preventing their defection to rivals like Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which long have offered free, ad-supported e-mail. An unknown number of European employees will still have jobs, but with a different...

NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) AOL online division on Thursday said about 5,000, or about 26 percent of its 19,000 employees, will not be employed by the company within six months as a result of its retructuring. "At a company meeting this morning, Jon Miller (AOL CEO) told AOL's worldwide work force of 19,000 people that within six months, it was likely that around 5,000 employees would no longer be with the company," the company said in a statement. AOL, which is in the process of selling its European Internet access business,...

TIME WARNER CEO DICK PARSONS admits that Time Inc.'s second-quarter returns were poor. Speaking on an earnings conference call Wednesday morning, Parsons said: "The one disappointment in the quarter was Time Inc., whose results were once again less robust than we had expected." His words confirmed industry buzz that spiked with the company's closing of Teen People on July 25. According to Time Warner figures, Time Inc. experienced declining revenue across a number of sources on a year-over-year basis, with subscription revenue falling 5 percent from $421 million in second quarter 2005 to $398 million in 2006. Other publishing revenues...

On page 7 of 19 of the Q2 2006 news release we find this bit of information... PUBLISHING (Time Inc.) Revenues declined 2% ($29 million) to $1.3 billion, reflecting decreases in Subscription ($23 million), Other ($14 million) and Content ($6 million) revenues, offset partially by higher Advertising revenues ($14 million). The decline in Subscription revenues was related to an unfavorable impact from changes in foreign currency exchange rates at IPC ($9 million) as well as decreases at Southern Living due primarily to one fewer issue in 2006. The decrease in Other revenues was due largely to lower commerce revenues at...

Time Warner Inc. swung to a $1 billion profit in the second quarter and released details Wednesday of a long-anticipated plan to offer many AOL services such as e-mail for free. Time Warner lost $409 million in the same period a year ago, when the company recorded a $3 billion charge for settling securities litigation. The loss amounted to 9 cents per share a year ago.

Disappointment remains Wall Street's watchword on Time Warner (TWX) . The media behemoth overcame a challenge by restive shareholders earlier this year and is preparing to roll out a new plan for its torpid AOL unit. But as Time Warner prepares to post second-quarter earnings Wednesday morning, its stagnant share price continues to flummox investors. The New York media company, which owns cable systems, TV networks and movie studios, along with publishing and online properties, has seen its shares fall 7% in 2006. That lags behind the big-cap S&P 500, which is up 2%, and trails hard-charging peers Disney (DIS)...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Publisher and broadcaster Tribune Co. (NYSE:TRB - News) said on Friday it sold 2.8 million shares of stock in media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - News) for net proceeds of about $46 million. Tribune expects to record a pretax gain on the sale of about $19 million in the third quarter of 2006, it said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Tribune owns newspapers including the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. It also owns the Chicago Cubs baseball team and more than two-dozen television stations.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Steve Case, co-founder of the one-time biggest online service AOL, apologized for the company's merger with media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. in an interview with U.S. journalist Charlie Rose. In an interview broadcast on Friday, Case, who was shoved aside as chairman in 2003 and who left the board entirely in 2005, said, "Yes, I'm sorry I did it," referring to the 2001 merger of Time Warner and AOL. The deal, known as one of the worst corporate mergers in history, destroyed some $200 billion in shareholder value. Last October, Case argued in a Washington Post...