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Time Warner To Spin Off AOL
Hugh Pickens writes "Time Warner is inching closer to untangling one of the worst mergers in American corporate history that began with the merger of Time Warner with America Online, a deal that has resulted in the evaporation of more than $100 billion of shareholder value. "Although the company's board of directors has not made any decision, the company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner's stockholders, in one or a series of transactions," Time Warner said in the filing. Tech industry analysts have speculated for years that Time Warner would spin off AOL; the two companies merged in 2001 with the idea that AOL's strengths as a new media company could benefit an old media company like Time Warner, and vice versa. But few synergies ever arose from the marriage and even AOL founder Steve Case, who is no longer with the company, has said that he believes the two companies should be separated."
Do I hear any bids?
Please don't say "synergies." It makes me cry a little.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Into oblivion, I presume?
Brett
Will I still get my AOL discs in the mail? I almost have enough to make a solar parabolic amplifier death ray.
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
I don't believe that for one moment. The writing was on the wall for AOL anyways, and for much of Time Warner as well. Had they not merged, they still would have lost about the same amount between them. To think otherwise - to agree with the above quote - is to somehow believe that AOL would still be what it was in 1996, when they were providing dialup for millions, which is just silly.
'nuff said.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Do you mean to tell me that you have the naivete to believe that the core of AOL wasn't an outdated business model when this merger happened? Face it. Turner didn't have a clue what he was doing, and he bought a timed bomb for which there was no way to disarm the fuze.
Ah, the joys of market bubbles. Seriously, this was primarily a Time Warner stumble. If I remember correctly, AOL was worth more than Time Warner at the time of the merger. Hence, "AOL Time Warner." In retrospect, that was ludicrous. It would have made as much sense for Time Warner to have changed it's name to "Time Warner.com" or something idiotic like that. It seemed that the most mundane business models, or no business models at all, were getting VC money because "it uses the internet." This, and the current recession, both serve to illustrate that business leaders often behave stupidly and are susceptible to hype.
Steve Case saved shareholder value for his AOL shareholders, the only people to whom he owed any duty. If, I don't know, Microsoft and GM were to merge, smart money would bet on Microsoft shareholders losing a LOT of money, but I would suspect GM's shareholders would be pretty happy with the deal. It all depends on how you define the loser.
Make love, not reality television.
1 Time Warner AOL merger of negative shareholder value is worth 14.3 Carly Fiorinas.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I mean, like you couldn't see that coming. AOL only had relevance when there was still a big dial-up business. They were a media company only in the sense that they were adept at scraping an eclectic batch of content from other sources and surrounding them with blocky, juvenile graphics.
Broadband to the home made AOL redundant. Without Time Warner to prop it up, AOL would have ceased to exist years ago.
Or, maybe not... I am continually astonished at the number of people with cable or DSL to their home who think they need a third-party ISP on top of the ISP they already have, by definition, with their broadband service. In that respect, AOL has been a marketing phenomenon, continuing to sell services long after those services became largely unnecessary. But that's not a sustainable business model. (Nor is making it as difficult as possible to quit.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
AOL Acquires Time Warner in Largest Ever Expenditure of Pretend Internet Money
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
The book 'There Must be a Pony in Here Somewhere' is a great read about this whole debacle.
To spoil the title, it's about how a small pile of steaming horsecrap is just a pile of steaming horsecrap, but if you get a HUGE pile of it, then start digging, because there must be a pony in here somewhere. At least that was Time Warner's theory.
http://www.amazon.com/There-Must-Pony-Here-Somewhere/dp/1400049644/
Comment removed based on user account deletion
cost too mutch
it suck
no good
send to many disk.
Me and my friends took a bisk and lit it on fire and froze it slamed it angaisnt the boor.
(Incidentally, why has this vanished from Google? It's not even in the groups/dejanews archive anymore).
By concentrating as much sucktitude in one place as possible to stop it spreading throughout the rest of the sector. That's why when Mozilla started showing signs that it might actually deliver something worthwhile it was set free to avoid breaking from AOL's aim of "sucking big time".
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Microsoft could buy AOL and merge it with MSN.
AT&T could buy out AOL and merge it with their ISPS and Yahoo.
Oracle could buy out AOL and merge it with Sun, and port the AOL software to Solaris and SunOS.
Google could buy out AOL and turn it into GOL or Google Online.
Nobody can buy out AOL and let them go into bankruptcy with all of their debt.
AOL was a crappy ISP with bloatware for their connection software. Almost every service that AOL provides one can get for free or almost free on the Internet. Before the Internet explosion, AOL was something like Prodigy, CompuServe, et al because there was no world wide web. I can remember when AOL was Commodore 64 GEOS based, before it was ported to Windows and the Mac.
The best part of AOL was Netscape, but they even got rid of that.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
AOL based their entire business on local dial up and they had no plan for transitioning to broadband. Any fool can see that in 2009 and their valuation at the time of the merger looks silly in hindsight.
Where do we see the same thing today? How about Twitter and Facebook? We've detected some outrageous valuations but there is no plan for either to move to becoming a self sustaining business.
Thing is, I remember when it was first announced thinking that if it gave AOL access to Time Warner's content it was a great idea. But the thing is, it never really did. In the end none of Time Warner's companies ever really put their content out there (Standard MPAA/RIAA fears) and so AOL never got any content out of it. So while the merger had potential, neither side took any advantage of it at all. Now AOL is just a ISP basically, and Time Warner is still just another content provider trying to cling to the old ways while they figure out what this Internet thing is.
Perhaps everyone is missing the important asset here: AOL Instant Messenger. It's still the leader in instant messaging. I'll bet Microsoft would love to force-march the AIM user base to "Windows Live Instant Messenger" (or whatever they call it).
For a monopolist with a war-chest full of cash like Microsoft, it's worth buying AOL and throwing the rest of the company away just to get AIM users.
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