Whispers on Wall Street predicted Time Warner would today report AOL ad revenues down 30 percent since last year, SAI reports. Didn't happen, but hold the cartwheels. AOL only grew 1 percent since the same quarter last year. Paid search and AOL's ad networks, which place ad on third-party sites, drove the growth, while declining revenue on display ads on AOL properties kept it meager. That's an unprofitable equation. Popular publishers demand high guarantees before joining ad networks. This quarter, such "traffic aquisition costs" were a primary reason for underwhelming numbers.

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