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AOL Time Warner. Ken Peffers UNLV October 2004. Before the Merger. That's "C" for convergence, the buzzword of the year in the merger-happy days of 1999.
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AOL Time Warner Ken Peffers UNLV October 2004
Before the Merger • That's "C" for convergence, the buzzword of the year in the merger-happy days of 1999. • "No company will be able to better capitalize on the convergence of entertainment, communications, and commerce," gloated AOL CEO Steve Case, who will serve as chairman of the conglomerate-to-be, AOL Time Warner. • --Wired News Jan 10 2000
Before the Merger • After surprising Wall Street at the start of the day, executives of America Online and Time Warner convened for a late-morning press conference where they talked about how the US$163 billion deal combines the biggest subscriber bases in the Internet and entertainment industries. • "This is the first time a major Internet company has combined with a major media company, and the possibilities are truly endless," Case said. "The true value of this union lies not in what it will do today, but what it will do in the future.“ • --Wired News Jan 10 2000
Claimed Tactical synergies • Use TW channels to promote AOL services • Shift TW marketing to AOL. • Shut down TW digital media unit • Eliminate redundancies in admin services • Cross selling to increase revenue • Offer more content to broadband cable subscriber base
Strategic options • Digitize TW libraries for delivery on AOL-TW broadband • Develop personalized services based on TW content
Transformational opportunities • Convergence of TV, radio, print, telephone and computer. • Undefined revenue streams
AOL Tries to Stop the Bleeding • America Online released Thursday an overhaul of its software that relies on improved tools and content to keep current customers from defecting, even as the company's dialup business continues to shrivel. • The company that came to dominate the dialup ISP business by giving neophytes an easy on ramp lately has been bleeding subscribers as more and more of its customers grow comfortable with technology and switch to other, often cheaper, alternatives, or to broadband. • --Wired News, 31 jul 2003
Name Change for AOL Time Warner? • America Online is asking AOL Time Warner to drop "AOL" from its name, concerned that negative publicity about the parent company is hurting the online service's efforts to right itself, a person familiar with the situation said Monday. • America Online has been struggling to turn itself around as dialup subscribers continue to abandon the service for faster ways to connect to the Internet. Revenues and earnings at AOL are falling, and subscriber losses have increased faster than many analysts were expecting. • If the AOL name is dropped, it would represent the latest retreat from the lofty goals of the deal announced in January 2000 under which AOL agreed to purchase Time Warner. • --Wired News, Aug 11 2003
Name Change • Effective October 16, 2003, AOL Time Warner Inc. changed its name to Time Warner Inc. Also, the former Time Warner Inc., its subsidiary, changed its name to Historic TW Inc.