Gawker
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deals
Is There a Coporate Suicide Plot Behind AOL Spinoff?
The surrender of AOL was a humiliating enough denouement for Time Warner, the old-line media conglomerate once imagined invincible. But there's talk it could get worse. What if Time Warner ceased to exist as an independent concern? More »
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By Ryan TateComment by ModestProposal: This is totally wrong. The Networks division of Time Warner, composed of Turner and HBO, has high single digit... more » | Other threads
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spinoffs
The AOL-Time Warner Saga Bookends One Sorry Decade
The 21st century dawned with news that two media megaliths, AOL and Time Warner, were to merge. Critics howled that the vast tentacles of a combined AOL-TW would subsume us all. Today, Time Warner confirmed it's spinning off AOL, ending a business saga that defined whatever you're calling the 2000s. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by persimmon: I'm hoping this means we'll never hear the word "synergy" uttered again. 5 Responses | Other threads
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exits
AOL Boots Loser CEO for Google's Tim Armstrong
At last, AOL has done something right: The Time Warner Internet unit has hired Google's Tim Armstrong as its new CEO, booting the laughably incompetent duo of CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Nick Denton: Why are you so sure he's the best man for the job? He's no product guy -- and arguably that's... 4 Responses | Other threads
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layoffs
Attention, AOL Layoff Victims: Steve Case Is Sad
AOL, the failing Time Warner Internet unit, is laying off another 700 employees via emails alerting them to an "important meeting." Even the pink-slipping process is predictable now. And former CEO Steve Case? He's sad. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by spraytanman: Like most things in business - success happens by accident. Its what you do after that defines who you are. Steve... 4 Responses | Other threads
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online video
The Internet's funny business tunes out
Superdeluxe, Turner Broadcasting's ha-ha video site, has finally shut down. Is anyone going to miss it — or the rest of the Web's other humor-clips startups?
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By Owen ThomasComment by alexr_vw: And when does domain name superdeluxe.com revert to it's original owner? more » | Other threads
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randy falco
AOL's know-nothing CEO
The heady rush of access can cloud a reporter's brain. Nicholas Carlson, late of Valleywag, now at Silicon Alley Insider, had stalked his prey inside New York's Natural History Museum: Randy Falco, the CEO of AOL. After Falco made a presentation to media buyers, Carlson buttonholed him and got his scoop: Falco is of the opinion that, with Jerry Yang out as CEO, President Sue Decker will swiftly follow. But he missed the real story. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Nicholas Carlson: Nah Falco was just hedging 1 Responses | Other threads
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earnings
When will Time Warner give up on AOL?
Time Warner has reported its third-quarter results, including AOL's numbers, and they are dismal. Internet-access revenues were down 26 percent, a loss everyone more or less expected, since the dial-up business is moribund. But advertising sales were down 6 percent. AOL management can't blame the market meltdown for this one, since that had barely started by the time the quarter ended. October through December, one assumes, will be much, much worse. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by teleprax: It's getting harder to justify having your search marketing team put any time or effort in to running on engines... more » | Other threads
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rumormonger
If Scott Moore leaves Yahoo, does that mean it's buying AOL?
Scott Moore, the head of Yahoo Media Group, is leaving the company, reports BoomTown's Kara Swisher. A bad sign for the company: Moore ran some of Yahoo's most successful operations, including its news, finance, and sports websites. Why is Moore leaving now, having survived most of Yahoo's annus horribilis with his charm unruffled? The first conclusion I'll jump to: Talks with Time Warner to sell AOL to Yahoo are advancing, and Moore does not like his position in the merged entity. Update: Swisher writes: "Dead wrong guess as usual. Talks are slower than ever. He had the top job over Bill Wilson." Well, why didn't you say so in the first place, Kara?
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By Owen ThomasComment by karaswisher: I forgot you were in remedial reading, Owen. I said it here: "With high-ranking Yahoo execs like Moore gone, it will... 2 Responses | Other threads
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acquisitions
Yahoo, AOL still dating awkwardly
“This is not just unloading AOL for us,” a source close to Time Warner told Kara Swisher. “It is also an important strategic move for our future to get this right.” I love the way anonymous sources lie so convincingly. The truth, Swisher blogs, is both simpler and more boring: Yahoo and AOL don't really like each other. Neither company holds much attraction for the other. Important strategic move means an arranged marriage, forced on both sides by dwindling market value. Which reminds me: We should plot the number of Google engineers whose pending marriages have been "temporarily rescheduled for 2009."
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By Paul BoutinComment by Morphy: AOL and Yahoo are like two people buried up to their necks covered in honey next to an ant hill.... more » | Other threads
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great moments in pr
At Time Warner, synergy still a sin
I used to work at an arm of Time Warner, the media conglomerate. What employees there learn: Synergy is a joke, and the company's many divisions hate working with each other so much they'd sooner partner with outsiders than give someone in-house a deal. The most famous, if apocryphal, anecdote: When Time Warner Cable asked to license the Road Runner character from Warner Bros., the studio initially wanted to charge $1 billion for the use. Putting AOL in the mix only made things worse. I'd hoped things might have gotten better in recent years — through my retirement plan, I'm still a shareholder. A recent press release made me despair. The headline: "Warner Bros. Digital Distribution Partners with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment." Only inside Time Warner would a collaboration like this be considered newsworthy.
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By Owen ThomasComment by CareyCading: They are all fighting for the same discretionary money and time: when someone is reading Time, they aren't watching a... more » | Other threads
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acquisitions
AOL cuts Yahoo, even before a deal's done
They say, of fastly dropping markets, that one should never try to catch a falling knife. In trying to sell AOL, Time Warner could be letting a sharp blade fly at Yahoo, the most likely buyer for the troubled Internet business. Will a deal happen? If so, for how much? No one really knows, but everyone wants this clumsy mating dance to be over. Henry Blodget floated and then retracted a rumor that a deal was imminent, for something in the range of $8 billion to $10 billion. More » -
yahoo
Jerry Yang in New York talking AOL deal
The much-talked-about talks between Yahoo and Time Warner to unload AOL? They're definitely on, says a tipster, who also claims Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker are in New York trying to cajole Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes into a deal before Yahoo announces third-quarter earnings later this month. Any Manhattan stargazers care to keep an eye out for him? Update: Kara Swisher now reports Yang has been in New York recently, but not, as our tipster claims, this week She also has lots and lots and lots of speculation about who will run a merged AOL-Yahoo.
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By Owen ThomasComment by jasondupree: Maybe Time Warner will buy Yahoo is a wierd turn of events. 1 Responses | Other threads
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mergers
Liberty Media ready to pay $1.42 billion for AOL dialup business
Liberty Media CEO John Malone told the Financial Times his company is ready to swap its $1.42 billion stake in Time Warner in order to acquire AOL's dialup business. There's just one holdup. "Time Warner still needs to divide the business," Malone complained to the FT. Though it's been more than two years since Time Warner decided to turn AOL into an online advertising concern and abandon the Internet service provider business, AOL won't be completely split until early 2009. Malone isn't the only exec impatient for Time Warner's book keepers to hurry it up. AOL CEO Randy Falco was overheard last week griping: "When is New York going to sell us?"
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Comment by macbeach: Is it possible that AOL is finding the dia-up business more valuable than they first thought? There are many people in... more » | Other threads
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deathwatch
How long will Randy Falco stay at AOL?
Let us say it, since every other writer seems too kind: As CEO of AOL, Randy Falco is an utter embarrassment. Silicon Alley Insider recounts his perplexing performance in front of a crowd of media executives gathered for Advertising Week in New York. "Radio was supposed to die 50 years ago," Falco said. "The reason radio is still around is because of mobile. The reason broadcast will still be around 50 years from now is because of mobile. All of our businesses up here will continue to grow because of video applications on mobile." What? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Rachel Marsden: ROCK ME AMADOUCHEBAG!!! Falco's dead. more » | Other threads
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online advertising
AOL lays off 5 to 10, will miss revenue targets
Time Warner CFO John Martin told investors yesterday that while online subsidiary AOL's ad network Platform-A "had been growing like a weed,'' the company now doubts it will hit its revenue targets. "We have seen some cancellations," Martin told conferencegoers. "It gives us pause in terms of our confidence to ramp advertising in the back half of the year.'' AOL also laid of 5 to 10 employees from its "Shared Services" group yesterday, SAI reports — the only surprise there being the small size of the cut. AOL's recent efforts to combat waning advertiser and consumer interest in its brand include creating a new huge banner ad format and also allowing AOL.com visitors to access email from other providers.
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Comment by MuglyTheWorm: i didn't even know aol still existed, what exactly does it do now? more » | Other threads
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design
Updated AOL.com: a place for Yahoo Mail, Google search, wire stories and banner ads
Time Warner's underperforming online subsidiary AOL updated its homepage today. The biggest change is that AOL now allows users to access their Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail accounts from AOL.com. Along with new ad formats on AOL.com such as photo galleries and video players, AOL also announced new sites for women, pop-culture junkies, and parents of gamers. It's just AOL's latest desperate attempt to recapture the relevance it's lost since it ceased to be Middle America's only way of getting online. Nothing else has worked yet. Analytics firm Compete says unique visitors to AOL.com are down 12.7 percent in th last year, from around 62 million in August 2007 to 54 million in August 2008. And while the rest of the online ad market grew 20 percent, AOL advertising revenues grew only 1.5 percent last quarter. -
time warner
Liberty Media: We'd take AOL's access business
During a conference call to reports Liberty Media's second-quarter earnings, CEO John Malone told analysts the company was open to exchanging its stake in Time Warner for AOL's online access business. Liberty owns 103 million Time Warner shares, or about 2.8 percent of the company. Such a swap would value AOL's access business at around $1.6 billion, lower than the $2 billion to $3 billion analysts say its worth. A swap would lower Time Warner's tax burden, however, possibly making the deal more attractive. Earlier this year, Liberty performed a similar swap with News Corp., trading its stake in the company for control over DirecTV.
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Comment by WagCurious: This actually makes a lot of sense. The DirectTV receiver needs an uplink so bad it wakes up in the... more » | Other threads
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earnings
AOL ad revenue basically flat, probably because who goes to AOL.com anymore?
Time Warner beat second-quarter earning estimates, posting revenues of $11.55 billion against Wall Street's guess of $11.45 billion. But AOL, the company's online division, which is strangely coveted for acquisition by both Yahoo and Microsoft, didn't do nearly so well, reporting a 15 percent revenue decline to $1.05 billion. A shrinking Internet-access business is mostly to blame for the drop, but execs said AOL's online-advertising division didn't help much either. It grew only 2 percent, primarily on the strength of ad sales on third-party websites. AOL's owned-and-operated websites lost revenue. In good news for shareholders, the company did not have any news to report about improper vote counting at the company's last shareholder meeting.
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Comment by WillVille: @aoltech1: That sounds like a good idea, they don't deal in technology anymore, so why have technology centers.. But Question,... more » | Other threads
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careers
The Rehabilitation Of Bob Pittman
It is one of the wonders of America, that business celebrities like junk-bond salesman Michael Milken can be disgraced and then redeemed, often within the span of a decade. Tarnished former media mogul and social climber, Bob Pittman, has secured the first big payday of his new career as an internet investor: his Daily Candy, the email newsletter for women who buy handbags, has sold to cable giant Comcast for $125m, according to Silicon Alley Insider. That's more than had been rumored, and way more than Pittman in 2003 paid for his stake: $3.5m. More »
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By Nick DentonComment by garbanzo314: Interesting, this new Gawker editorial philosophy: stories of substances occasionally interrupting snippets of snark. Nice change, Nick. more » | Other threads
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yahoo
Time Warner screws ex-AOL CEO Jon Miller a second time
Right as former AOL CEO Jon Miller gets a glowing profile in the Los Angeles Times, his former boss strikes back at him in the most callow way possible, by blocking his appointment to the Yahoo board. Was it not enough for Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes to ignominiously sack Miller two years ago, replacing him with the hated and ineffective Randy Falco, who instantly sent AOL's recovering business into a tailspin? Of course not! The media boss is enforcing Miller's noncompete agreement, blocking him from even working at Yahoo as a director — after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who championed Miller's cause, had already announced he would join the board. More » -
cutbacks
AOL asks bloggers to stop blogging, cuts costly products
Perhaps readying itself for a sale to Microsoft or Yahoo, Time Warner company AOL began cutting costs yesterday. One memo, from Kevin Conroy, AOL’s EVP of Products and Marketing, told employees AOL will "sunset" products Bluestring, Xdrive and AOL Pictures. MyAOL will go into maintenance-only mode and investment in AIMWorld — we've never heard of it either — is done. In a second memo, AOL subsidiary Weblogs Inc asked its pay-per-post bloggers writing for Diylife.com, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and DownloadSquad to stop filing until July 31. (Photo by AP/Sakuma)
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Comment by WillVille: I suppose it makes sense to cut here. The Blogs/ Channels were great back when the Big Wall still reigned... more » | Other threads
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hires
There's a bubble in the market for Jon Miller
Everyone wants a piece of beloved former AOL CEO Jon MIller, who was oh so unfairly fired, loyalists say, by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes. First gossips suggested Miller as a fit to replace ineffectual Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Then, on Monday, Yang himself said Miller would fill one of Carl Icahn's new seats on the Yahoo board. Now, a source tells Kara Swisher that Miller is "one of the top outside candidates on the list" to head Microsoft's new Online Services division. Maybe everyone can stop moaning about the way Bewkes handled Miller's dismissal now?
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Comment by Troll_2.0: I that pic he has a look on his face like "I have a broom up my butt, and I... more » | Other threads
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mergers
AOL dealmakers meeting with Microsoft, taking calls from Yahoo
An AOL team of negotiators is in Seattle right now, trying to sell the business to Microsoft for a price somewhere between $10 billion and $15 billion. An AOL source told Silicon Alley Insider the probability that a deal gets done on this trip is "low/medium." Perhaps in an effort to speed the proceedings and ignite a bidding war, another source told Reuters that AOL-Yahoo merger negotiations — on since April — "have taken on new urgency." If such a bidding war goes down, bet that AOL goes to Microsoft, which has more cash than Yahoo. More importantly, CEO Steve Ballmer will refuse to get left at the altar by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang again. More » -
blogging for dollars
AOL wants to buy TechCrunch at a 70 percent discount to Arrington's nine-figure price tag
Time Warner's AOL and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington have been talking for the past two months, with AOL offering Arrington $20 million to $30 million to acquire tech's most dutiful clearinghouse for startup PR. Kara Swisher says that TechCrunch wants more than $30 million; we've heard he's looking for more like $100 million. Arrington has perpetually shopped his site around; all this deal talk reminds us how, just the other weekend, we overhead him wishing he could just sell out and move to Hawaii. Which makes for a nice pipe dream, but a weak negotiating position. Another reason to be skeptical: This is not Arrington's first flirtation with Time Warner. More »
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Comment by GrantDarnoldo: cmon Calcainis got $30mil from AOL, why wouldn't his good friend Arrington?... more » | Other threads
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aol
Why can't Time Warner save Yahoo? The Google deal
The AOL-Yahoo deal Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang spent the Fourth of July weekend trying to cobble together won't happen. At least, not in time for Yang to present it on August 1 to Yahoo shareholders as an alternative to Carl Icahn's Microsoft-Yahoo promises. The deal would have combined Time Warner's online property AOL with Yahoo and given Time Warner 10 percent of the new company. But Yang's problem is once again the price he wants for Yahoo. Specifically, Yang believes Yahoo's recent search deal with Google boosts the company's revenues so much, it makes it worth more than Time Warner has so far said its willing to pay. Ah, the delicious irony, a Google deal that was supposed to keep Microsoft away ends up driving Yahoo right into its arms. -
yahoo raid
Yang eyes AOL to save his job
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang spent the holiday weekend with his company's Goldman Sachs advisers, devising a plan to present shareholders during the company's annual meeting on August 1. The goal: Craft an alternative to a company breakup or buyout at the hands of Microsoft, which would likely come at the cost of the entire Yahoo board's jobs, including Yang's. To escape such a fate, Yang and his bankers zeroed in on Time Warner, hoping to acquire its online property AOL in exchange for $10 billion worth of Yahoo stock. It's an old plan, brought up again last week after first surfacing in April. More » -
Corporate Raid
Reeling Yahoo board talks AOL merger, prepares to give Icahn board seats
Yahoo continues to hold merger talks with Time Warner, discussing a deal that would fold AOL into Yahoo and give Time Warner a minority stake in the new company. Another morning, another round of share-price stimulating rumormongering in the Yahoo saga. If the deal sounds familiar, that's because Yahoo sources first leaked the idea back in April. You're hearing it again because Yahoo shares dropped into the teens two days ago. We don't expect Yahoo-AOL to happen, if only because Microsoft is also said to be interested in AOL and its got a lot more cash and pride on the line. In other Yahoo rumormongering: Reporter's reporter Kara Swisher reports that Yahoo is prepared to avoid a nasty proxy fight with Carl Icahn by giving him two seats on its board. Problem is Ican wants four. Swisher thinks the two will come to an agreement because neither side wants a media-friendly, share-crumbling fight at the company's annual media. Because its not at all too late for such concerns. -
deals
Microsoft looking for a third to get in on the Yahoo action
Microsoft's latest plan: acquire Yahoo's search business and convince either Time Warner or News Corp to snatch up the rest. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo board chairman Roy Bostock had a meeting scheduled Monday to discuss the plans, but Ballmer called it off at the last minute, reports the Wall Street Journal. Yahoo sources took the cancellation to mean Ballmer couldn't persuade News Corp's chairman Rupert Murdoch or Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes to do the deal. They're probably right about Bewkes. Word has it he's hoping Yahoo will buy Time Warner's AOL, not the other way around. As for Murdoch, he's been willing to hand over MySpace for Yahoo stock since at least last year, but perhaps like us, he's wondering why anyone would make a move for Yahoo shares right now, when they don't seem to be going anywhere but down. (Photo by xamad) -
recommendations
Jason Calacanis says ex-AOL CEO Jon Miller is the man for you, Yahoos
Before creating the world's most comprehensive list of videogame cheats, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis worked at AOL under then-CEO Jon Miller. Calacanis joined AOL only after it bought Weblogs Inc. from him for $25 million and since Miller led that acquisition, eventually invested in Mahalo and now sits on the company's board, Calacanis is naturally a little biased in his feelings toward Miller, whom Calacanis considers a mentor. Still, when we heard talk of Miller as a contender to be Yahoo's next CEO, we figured Calacanis's opinions would at least be entertainingly biased. Our email exchange: More »
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Comment by Joker1118: I'd agree with ethelmccreedy....these two guys would be a huge help, and yang wouldn't be threatened by them, as they... more » | Other threads
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microsoft
Now Wall Street wants Microsoft to buy AOL
If you ask an investment banker, the only way Microsoft is going to compete against Google is to acquire a dying 1990s Internet brand. Gabelli & Co. analyst Christopher Marangi now wants the company to acquire AOL from Time Warner. He writes: More »
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Comment by aquafina: MSFT played it perfectly to buy YHOO: 1) tell jerry "no thanks" and make jerry look like a kid in a... more » | Other threads
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strategery
Bewkes to shareholder: Just pretend Bebo is MySpace
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes's oops-did-I-Bebo-that tour continues. Yesterday at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecom conference, a shareholder asked Bewkes how $850 million for a third-place social network jibed with Bewkes's claim that disciplined capital allocation is a key priority for Time Warner. According to PaidContent, Bewkes said, “We did make a bit of a stretch." He then tried to reassure the worried shareholder saying, it was the “same thing when News Corp. bought MySpace.” More »
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Comment by Tim Faulkner: If Parsons can beat off Carl Icahn and then turn the company over to Bewkes, Jerry Yang still has hope? more » | Other threads
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child porn
Why Verizon, Sprint And Time Warner Shouldn't Block Child Porn
The New York attorney general's office ran a "sting" in which agents posed as customers and complained to the companies that they could see child porn. When the service providers ignored them, the agency threatened the companies with fraud. Now, according to the Times, the ISPs are paying over a million dollars to Andrew Cuomo's office and promising to block child porn sites as identified by the office — to all their subscribers across the U.S. As despicable and exploitative as child porn is, blocking it this way is a terrible move. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by uncle_wiggly: Andrew is just too lazy to find the guys that are posting the stuff so as an alternative he's closing... more » | Other threads
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crash this bash
You're invited to Michael and Xochi Birch's Bebo farewell party
Bebo founders Michael and Xochi Birch cashed out in the nine figures with the social network's $850 million purchase by AOL. According to the invite for their farewell party, they'll be retiring to a humble, quiet cabin (which, in the Bay Area housing market, should set them back a million or two). What they aren't spending their windfall on? More »
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By Jackson WestComment by Big John: not reinvesting the windfall in another startup? more » | Other threads
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time warner
What to do with AOL's dial-up business?
Time Warner is trying to split AOL's dial-up business from its Web-content operations, and running into trouble in the process, says Henry Blodget. The problem: Allocating costs. AOL can run its websites cheaply in part because it has so many servers running email and other services for subscribers; scale economics mean that servers and bandwidth cost less. A smaller, standalone Web-publishing operation wouldn't enjoy the same benefits. But I suspect the larger problem is allocating revenues, not costs. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Niemal: @BillyShears: I'm astonished by your naivete. Not everyone lives in a big city. It's not easy laying pipe way out... more » | Other threads
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d6 live coverage
Yahoo's Scott Moore catches Time Warner CEO fudging numbers
CARLSBAD, CA — How rarely can one give one's enemies an in-your-face comeuppance? For Yahoo's Scott Moore, the chance came during Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes's interview at D6. Bewkes claimed that AOL was No. 1 in news, finance, and a host of other categories. "Where are you getting your numbers?" asked Moore during the session's open-mic portion, pointing out that AOL led Yahoo in all the areas Bewkes mentioned. Bewkes offered a feeble parry, suggesting that the numbers were close. Not even, Moore replied, rattling off how many millions of users the Yahoo sites he leads beat AOL. A satisfying moment, but shouldn't Moore be keeping his career options open at a time like this? (Photo by Asa Mathat/AllThingsD.com)
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By Owen ThomasComment by nickcharles: Actually Bewkes is right - via ComScore, AOL is ahead of Yahoo in Health, Women, Movies, Music, etc. in Unique... more » | Other threads
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d6 live coverage
Microsoft, AOL talking? Our spy photo says yes
CARLSBAD, CA — Here's Microsoft dealmaker Hank Vigil chatting up AOL COO Ron Grant over lunch at the D6 conference. Why is that interesting? Because we overheard Vigil gabbing away on his cell phone earlier today about the "economic terms" of some deal. Microsoft famously made a run at merging its online businesses with Time Warner's AOL a few years ago. As with its recent talks with Yahoo, Microsoft only succeeded at driving its target into Google's arms; Google has a search deal with AOL, and owns 5 percent of the company. Could AOL be an option once more for Microsoft? Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is set to take the stage soon. While he's not likely to say anything about talks, it's a safe bet Vigil and Grant will be seeing more of each other.
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By Owen ThomasComment by categorically: Hiding in the bushes? I don't know if I should laugh or cry.... more » | Other threads
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yahoo
Now that Time Warner has another $9.25 billion to play with, will Yahoo talks heat up?
Time Warner Cable will pay shareholders a $10.9 billion dividend as part of its spinoff from Time Warner, which will get $9.25 billion as its portion. With that cash in the bank, will Time Warner-Yahoo negotiations heat up? Last we heard, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes were negotiating a deal that would merge AOL and Yahoo and give Time Warner 20 percent control over the new company. According to Bewkes, the new cash could result in "disciplined acquisitions." Bewkes also acknowledged that AOL-Yahoo "discussions are going on." But here's the thing: as much as Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang might prefer merging with AOL rather than selling out as a whole or in splinters to Microsoft, it's not really up to him anymore, is it?
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Comment by search.scientist: Time Warner + Yahoo = MABI "Mother of All Bad Ideas". Yahooers run for your lives. more » | Other threads
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spin-offs
Time Warner formally spins off Time Warner Cable
Time Warner will spin off its cable access division, Time Warner cable, by converting the subsidiary's B shares into A shares and handing them over to Time Warner shareholders. Then Time Warner Cable will pay Time Warner a $9.25 billion dividend. Because if you loathe something, you set it free. For $9.25 billion. [PaidContent] -
yahoo raid
Will Carl Icahn crash Yahoo?
In explaining Carl Icahn's raid on Yahoo, pundits bring up his efforts to shake up tech and media giants like Motorola and Time Warner. But I think there's a better analogy in Icahn's past: TWA. Icahn's attempt to gain a board seat or broker a new deal to sell Yahoo to Microsoft will not send Yahoo soaring; if left unchecked, he will run Yahoo into the ground as surely as he did that troubled airline. Icahn's bid, and the support it is drawing from large Yahoo investors, seems premised on the notion that he can bring Microsoft and Yahoo back to the bargaining table. That seems unlikely. More » -
online video
Turner shuts down comedy site SuperDeluxe.com, and "no one could deny they were crying their asses off"
Turner will shutter comedy site SuperDeluxe.com and roll its content into AdultSwim.com, paidContent reports. In an internal memo, Turner Animation exec Paul Condolora writes that "in SuperDeluxe.com and AdultSwim.com, we have businesses whose potential for individual growth is limited by their increasingly complementary content." They say dying is easy and comedy is hard, but in this case we beg to differ. It all reminds us of the time — documented in an episode of SuperDeluxe's "Professor Brothers," below — that "a group of Marys went up to lay flowers and toys on Jesus's grave" and discovered "that there were doves, everywhere and they were crying their asses off." More »
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Comment by alexr_vw: So when does Turner return the superdeluxe.com domain to the original owners they bought it from? They made better use... more » | Other threads
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