Time Warner’s second-quarter earnings beat analysts’ expectations. But that’s not saying much, really. Profits fell 34 percent to $519 million, or 43 cents a share, from $792 million, or 66 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue was down nine percent to $6.8 billion.
Here’s further confirmation that Time Warner is looking to spin off AOL. In an SEC filing Monday, the company said it is seeking to amend debt agreements that restrict it from unloading the struggling business. Coming as it does after the hiring of Tim Armstrong, a former Google executive, as AOL CEO and chairman, the move would seem to suggest that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes has given up on the idea of an AOL merger with Yahoo and is pushing ahead full-bore with a spinoff.
In Silicon Valley, it’s hard to believe that not everyone follows each shiny new thing on the Web, tracks OS versions as intently as the storyline for “Battlestar Galactica” and remains jacked-in pretty much 24/7. But it’s been known to happen.
For instance, BoomTown was in Rome earlier this week attending a conference on business, brand and innovation that happens only once every seven years–and one of the biggest takeaways? Hardly any Italians have heard of Twitter, and those who have don’t really use it.
Looks like Carl Icahn did show up to his first Yahoo board meeting, though it appears he wasn’t able to get much done. The new board, which also includes former Viacom CEO Frank Biondi and former CEO of Nextel Partners, John Chapple, reportedly met Tuesday and decided as a first course of business to talk to Time Warner about the future of its AOL division.
Disciplined capital allocation is a key priority for Time Warner. That said, the company “may have overpaid” for Bebo, the social-networking site it acquired for $850 million cash back in March. So said Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes in an interview with Portfolio.
America Online acquired Time Warner for roughly $106 billion in stock and debt back in 2001. “I don’t think this is too much to say: This really is a historic merger, a time when we’ve transformed the landscape of media and the Internet,” former AOL chairman and CEO Steve Case said at the time. “Time Warner will offer an incomparable portfolio of global brands that encompass the full spectrum of media and content.”
A tough act to follow, last year’s D: All Things Digital 5. How do you best, or even match, a 75-minute joint interview with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Apple CEO Steve Jobs–a history-making history lesson taught by two principal protagonists of tech’s narrative? Summon Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse from the dead to reminisce about the “War of Currents”?
Time Warner, the world’s largest media company, soon won’t be quite so large. This morning Time Warner revealed the details of its planned spinoff of Time Warner Cable, a massive transaction that will separate the company’s content and distribution businesses once and for all.
Time Warner’s AOL division posted financial results today, and while its revenue did not, as some investors worried, “fall off a cliff,” it’s clearly hanging on to one for dear life.
Revenue at the AOL unit slid 23% to $1.1 billion, with much of that decline stemming from a steep 28% drop-off in dial-up subscribers. Ad-revenue [...]
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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