AOL Time Warner Moves to Eliminate AOL From Name

Yahoo finance ^ | Monday August 11, 1:51 pm ET | Julia Angwin and Martin Peers

[demlosers]

By Julia Angwin and Martin Peers, Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK -- AOL Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:AOL - News) is moving towards dropping AOL from the corporate name, returning it to "Time Warner."

In a surprising twist, management of America Online has been lobbying AOL Chairman Richard Parsons to drop AOL from the corporate name, arguing that the online service's brand name is being hurt by the identification of the corporate woes with the service.

Mr. Parsons is considering the division's request, say people close to the situation. AOL's board is scheduled to meet late next month and could consider a name change at that time. While the board's response isn't clear, one person familiar with the situation says it's unlikely that the board would oppose a name change if the AOL management was in favor.

People from within the old Time Warner have been pushing to drop AOL from the corporate name, arguing that it was a stain on the company's reputation given the online division's woes, including government investigations into its accounting. Mr. Parsons had demurred and had been expected to wait until the investigation was concluded.

[Graybeard58]

Will this in any way affect the number of those junk AOL discs I get in my mail?

[Radix]

AOL cooked their books for years, and they conned a lot of people into going along with that merger. Many execs. probably made a lot of money on that deal, and the shareholders are left holding the bag.

I have no sympathy for AOL or Time Warner. AOL is a crap product, and Time is a liberal propaganda machine.

[Orangedog]

Now if they could just remove AOL from their balance-sheet...

[WestPacSailor]

Will this in any way affect the number of those junk AOL discs I get in my mail?

I certainly hope not...they make great coasters and fantastic shooting range targets.

[Tall_Texan]

No. The problem is that investors are focusing at the failing and scandal-plagued AOL division rather than other healthier divisions of the company such as HBO, Warner Brothers, Time Warner Cable and RoadRunner internet service. The stick symbol is AOL.

They are lumped into "tech stocks" in media reports, ignoring that most of the company is not a traditional tech company. A name change would help diminish AOL's standing within the corporation.

Ironically, AOL bought Time Warner but Time Warner executives have been forcing out AOL's executives ever since and Time Warner people now control the company almost as much as they did before they were bought. Renaming the company makes sense to me.

[Tall_Texan]

The stock symbol is AOL but AOL does use a stick-figure symbol too.

[Paul Ross]

I tend to agree with you. On an interesting side note, though, most of their polling data showed a heavy conservative preponderance among their subscribers. After Time-Warner took over, the polls that they have at their introductory screens became heavily skewed so as to mitigate and prevent any possible conservative response. Nothing was ever asked 'straight up'. The premises were always bizzare and blatantly biassed. You are right, Time-Warner has not credibility, and AOL was sucked down with it. AOL's Steve Case was ideologically just as bad obviously, but didn't know how to be as devious as the media-types.

[Uncle Hal]

I bet the executives at AOL Time Warner would like to eliminate the AOL division altogether. They wish they had never merged I am sure. Probably the worst merger of all times.

[xp38]

The AOL Titanic deck chair shuffling team moves into action.

[Hurricane]

Just as soon as DSL is available in my area I will elimimate AOL from my computer.

[CWOJackson]

I live in a major metropolitan area. There are two high speed carriers in this area. AOL DSL and later, Comcast cable.

I had Comcast install but forutnately did not discontinue my AOL account right away. Good thing, even after three visits by techs, Comcast cable is a dog in my area.

[MalcolmS]

The whole AOL thing was the most brilliant move of anyone involved in the dot-com bubble.

It may have happened by accident, but if so, it was the most shrewd accident in history.

At the peak of the bubble, AOL, flush with bubble cash, bought Time-Warner, a company that actually had assets, products, etc. Now AOL is on it's way to worthlessness, but still has the assets of Time-Warner.

Talk about timing the market.

[My Favorite Headache]