Still, both figures exceeded the estimates of analysts, who had expected earnings of 37 cents on revenue of $6.97 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Revenue at the conglomerate’s studio, Warner Bros., fell nine percent to $2.3 billion despite some surprise box office hits like “The Hangover.” Meanwhile, revenue at the Time Warner (TWX) networks division was up five percent to almost $3 billion, despite a three percent drop in ad revenue.

And what of AOL? Time Warner’s soon-to-be-spun-off Internet division continued to be an albatross hung round the company’s neck. Its revenue dropped 24 percent to $804 million, dragged down by weak advertising and a continued decline in subscribers. Operating income fell 28 percent to $165 million. (See table below; click to enlarge.)

In a statement, CEO Jeff Bewkes said that Time Warner is “on track to spin off AOL to our stockholders around the end of the year. Separating AOL will benefit both companies–enabling Time Warner to concentrate fully on our core content businesses and improving AOL’s operational and strategic flexibility.”

Let’s hope so.

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. Well, that, and conversations with Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, and several Italian business leaders. Mark Zuckerberg, though, is most definitely plugged into the white-hot microblogging service. This week, he used his Twitter account, plus an appearance on “Oprah,” as a platform to herald the launch of Facebook’s own Twitteresque homepage redesign. In other news, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes laid off AOL President and COO Ron Grant and Chairman and CEO Randy Falco. BoomTown interviewed Falco’s replacement, Google (GOOG) ad sales exec Tim Armstrong, who’ll start at AOL as Chairman and CEO on April 7.

MediaMemo had the full memo from Time Warner on the Falco/Grant-Armstrong transition and also spoke with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen this week. Boxee is the start-up that lets you watch Web video on your TV, basically bypassing your cable box. Which is probably why it’s caught up in a cat-and-mouse game with Hulu, the joint venture between GE’s (GE) NBC and News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox that would much rather have you watch TV on the Internet instead. Guess who’s the mouse? Still, Hulu is down two networks, ABC and CBS (CBS)–though presumably, the aim is to offer all three. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones, which owns this Web site.) MediaMemo also noted that Google rolled out its behavioral targeting functionality this week and points out that we all might be hearing a lot more from a man named Rick Boucher in the near future as a result.

Behavioral targeting wasn’t the only thing that Google rolled out this week–it also launched Google Voice, the initiative based on the company’s acquisition of voice communications start-up GrandCentral. Digital Daily covered the story. Elsewhere in the telecom world, major Palm (PALM) investor Roger McNamee made some bold (read: crazy) assertions about iPhone users switching en masse to the Pre, which later needed to be clarified (read: backed away from) by Palm itself. RBC analyst Mike Abramsky is also bullish on the Pre and its WebOS, but in a less crazy way. He gave it a glowing write-up on Friday. For a product that hasn’t yet been given a price or a launch date, it’s certainly building itself some high expectations. Of course, it’ll need to fulfill them to compete with the ever-evolving iPhone, which for which Apple (AAPL) is having a press event Tuesday to announce version 3.0 of the device’s OS.

Walt Mossberg reviewed the new version of Apple’s ever-evolving iPod Shuffle this week, which has the distinction of being the first mp3 player to “speak.” His verdict was in Wednesday’s Personal Technology column. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answered questions about using a stylus with the iPhone and offered an explanation on how to change Apple’s Safari 4 beta so that it looks and works more like the previous version. And in this week’s Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret took a look at iSkoot’s Notifier, an app designed to endow basic cellphones with smartphone-like capabilities.

More next week. And beware the Ides of March. Or not.

So perhaps this means that those talks are about to become more serious still. Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes did say earlier this month that AOL’s future “will probably get decided fairly soon.”

And if it does and the company is able to ditch AOL on Yahoo? Well, as I’ve said before, Yahoo (YHOO) will no doubt spin such a combination as one that would bolster its domestic market position. But rather than a synergistic powerhouse, a merger of these companies is more like two louts coming together to make one cretin. Not exactly a proven formula, considering recent history. AOL+Compuserve = FAIL. AOL+Netscape = FAIL. AOL+Time Warner = FAIL. AOL+Yahoo?

We just want you to know that as we assess our capital allocation options, we will continue to adhere to the disciplined framework that I just outlined.”

– Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, Aug. 06, 2008

Disciplined capital allocation is a key priority for Time Warner (TWX). That said, the company “may have overpaid” for Bebo, the social-networking site it acquired for $850 million in cash back in March. So said Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes in an interview with Portfolio.

Portfolio: And if you had to do it all over again … would you pay $850 million for Bebo?

Jeff Bewkes: Maybe. I’ll tell you why I can’t give you an answer. Because when you’re doing an acquisition in an auction, the core purpose of the auction is to try to get as much buyer and competing interest. When you look back at it, you then have to reveal–which I can’t to you–what I know about the other bidders. And you learn more of it after than before. The reason we said–when we kept being pressed by people, when they said “did you overpay or not?” we said we don’t know–is if our plans work out, we did not overpay. But then somebody says it’s compared to what you could’ve paid. If our plans work out less well than we thought, we would have overpaid by a few hundred million dollars. I’m not sitting here now–I don’t know if that’s the case–under a high case, we’ve actually made a lot of money on it. So it’s really too early to say. It’s kind of like saying, did Google (GOOG) overpay for YouTube? What was that number–$1.6 billion? They haven’t monetized that yet

AOL is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web. It don’t get no respect.”

– Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes

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.”

And it did. Problem was, AOL didn’t turn out to be one of them. And now, Time Warner (TWX), which struggled for years to turn AOL into the “digital media powerhouse” it was supposed to be, is planning to divest it. When the company reports second-quarter earnings Wednesday, it is expected to reveal that it’s separated AOL’s declining Internet access and advertising businesses. And that’s the first step in unloading one or both of them.

But who will buy the Rodney Dangerfield of the Web? Well, Time Warner has been and continues to be in informal talks with both Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) regarding AOL. Earthlink (ELNK) too is a possibility here. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, CEO Rolla Huff said a merger of AOL’s dial-up business with EarthLink’s would be a wise move. “We think it’s worth aggressively pursuing,” he said of such a deal. “We believe we’re best-positioned to be the consolidator in this industry. When an industry reaches a point of maturation and growth stops, it simply makes good economic sense to consolidate onto one cost platform.”

No. Better to let history make itself, as it always has, and focus on making news. And it’s likely there will be quite a bit of it coming out of D: All Things Digital 6. With this year’s lineup, how could there not? Microsoft’s Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer onstage together just a month before Gates steps back from his day-to-day duties as company chairman. Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes talking strategy as the media giant prepares to spin off Time Warner Cable and tries to figure out just what the hell to do with AOL. Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ) and FCC Chaiman Kevin Martin appearing separately, but together offering an insider view of the telecom industry as it grapples with issues of Net neutrality, open access and early termination fees. And then there’s Yahoo’s (YHOO) Jerry Yang and Sue Decker, who’ve been struggling to right a foundering Internet pioneer as it battles Google (GOOG), Microsoft, investor-agitator Carl Icahn and itself.

And that’s just a sampling. Clearly, there’s much to talk about. Much news to be made.

Sure, we may not have managed to arrange another tete-a-tete as historic as last year’s Gates/Jobs interview.

But we did manage to get Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo Co-Founder Jerry Yang on the same stage–albeit at different times. Still, no easy feat, that.

And who knows, perhaps we’ll get them onstage together as well.

So join us at d6.allthingsd.com tomorrow for as-it-happens, all-access coverage of the conference. Liveblogs of the sessions and demos. Videos of the speakers. Photos of attendees. You’ll find it all here.

(Photo illustration by Beth Callaghan)

The deal, which has been approved by both companies’ boards, calls for Time Warner Cable to pay a hefty $10.9 billion one-time dividend to shareholders. As parent company, Time Warner (TWX) will pocket $9.25 billion of that payout.

It’s a flashy move for Time Warner’s new CEO Jeff Bewkes, who’s been hard pressed to reinvigorate the company’s stock price. “After the transaction, each company will have greater strategic, financial and operational flexibility and will be better positioned to compete,” he said in a statement. “Separating the two companies will help their management teams focus on realizing the full potential of the respective businesses and will provide investors with greater choice in how they own this portfolio of assets.”

That’s all well and good, but how does Time Warner plan to realize the full potential of a $9.25 billion payout? By buying a company or two, perhaps. “Our share of the special dividend will clearly enhance our financial flexibility,” Bewkes said during a conference call this morning. “… We’re looking at all of the usual uses of capital, including returning capital to stockholders, including disciplined acquisitions and including investing further in our business.”

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 growth slowed markedly, rising just 1%. Disappointing news for Time Warner (TWX), which has been mulling the possible sale of AOL. With the MicroHoo merger on the horizon, the field of suitors for the division could narrow by two very quickly.

That said, today brought with it good news for Time Warner as well. The company reported first-quarter earnings that were largely in line with analyst expectations and announced plans to spin off its cable operation. “We’ve decided that a complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interests of both companies’ shareholders,” Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said today in a statement. “We’re working hard on an agreement with Time Warner Cable, which we expect to finalize soon.”