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posts about #timewarner more →
The Incredible Shrinking AOL
Time Warner Still Has Three Corporate Jets That Should Be Sold
Jeff Bewkes Motivates Remaining Time Warner Employees With Management-Speak
Media, In Ted Turner's Misguided Dreams
Why Delay AOL's Mass Layoffs?
The Times' Standards Editor Will Poop No More
Optimistic, and Crazy? J-School!
Is There a Coporate Suicide Plot Behind AOL Spinoff?
The AOL-Time Warner Saga Bookends One Sorry Decade
Media Companies Lick the Dirt

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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
11/19/09

In reply to The Incredible Shrinking AOL
Eeerily close to a decade since AOL swallowed Time-Warner
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snugbug
11/19/09

@If_I_Had_a_Poodle: I was really hoping that this thread would turn into a funeral commemoration about the good-olde days when AOL gobbled up Time Warner. I was working for the Fortune Group (which is part of Time Inc.) in 2000, at the precise moment when the merger hit, and I have some incredible stories.

We all had stock options as part of our employee package, and were gleefully monitoring the skyrocketing stock prices. Also, in the spring of 2000, the Fortune mag publisher whisked ALL the national staff--editorial, ad sales, the whole crew, including assistants and such--on a one-week, all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii. (That was because the Fortune Group overtook People in ad revenue at the height of the dotcom boom, and the publisher wanted to celebrate that.)

We all stayed in $500 rooms at the Four Seasons Manele Bay Hotel on the island of Lana'i. Everyone had rooms with an ocean view and got comped spa treatments. It's only 9 years ago, but it feels like it happened in some kind of mythical, fairy tale realm.
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badasscat
11/19/09

In reply to The Incredible Shrinking AOL
There's a "You've got Mail!" joke in here somewhere. There always is.
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JulieJewel
11/06/09

In reply to Time Warner Still Has Three Corporate Jets That Should Be Sold
I was at a film premiere in NY a couple of months ago where Alan Horn got up and made a big pitch for his charity that supports environmental causes...the fact he flew to NY from LA with his daughter just for the premiere was not lost on anyone in attendance. #privatejets
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
11/06/09

In reply to Time Warner Still Has Three Corporate Jets That Should Be Sold
They should get together with Nancy Pelosi and have themselves a good ol' fashioned jetfuel jam-bo-ree. #privatejets
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ErwinElephenor
11/06/09

In reply to Time Warner Still Has Three Corporate Jets That Should Be Sold
A company with far-flung interests like Time Warner needs to retain corporate jets. It is nearly impossible to make an early tee time in Palm Springs flying commercial from New York. Have you tried to fly to Bono International recently? Impossible hassle.
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Beau Nerd
11/06/09

In reply to Time Warner Still Has Three Corporate Jets That Should Be Sold
Coughstuckers. #privatejets
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goetz
11/06/09

@Beau Nerd: How am I only just now hearting you? #privatejets
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Beau Nerd
11/06/09

@goetz: Jet lag? #privatejets
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
11/04/09

In reply to Jeff Bewkes Motivates Remaining Time Warner Employees With Management-Speak
Jesus Christ, what utter drivel. Fire all the employees and save 100 percent of the wages expense. #timewarner
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Little Green Frog (Wise Latina)
10/16/09

In reply to Media, In Ted Turner's Misguided Dreams
I went to a 5K sponsored by Ted's restaurant last week and Captain Planet was there. In rollerblades. It was creepy and awesome at the same time. #tedturner
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Rock tha Hizzee
10/05/09

In reply to Why Delay AOL's Mass Layoffs?
It takes a long time to get all those layoff CDs printed and mailed out.
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FormerEnglishMajor
10/05/09

In reply to Why Delay AOL's Mass Layoffs?
Well, as an investor-type, I can tell you that the reason these things are postponed is so that, when Newco is public, they can make this really positive-sounding announcement that there will be cost cuts (downsizing), and all the sell-side analysts will run to their models and raise their earnings targets because hey! a one-time charge for layoffs doesn't flow through your "normalized" earnings-per-share, but the benefits over time do.

So I'd say it's a bit of window-dressing and smoke and mirrors, as these spinoffs usually are.
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daveyjonesisdead
10/05/09

@FormerEnglishMajor: and their year over year comparisons next year will be great because the first year will be burdened by the charge, right? so they'll make it look like, unburdened of Time Warner, they were finally able to unlock value.
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FormerEnglishMajor
10/05/09

@daveyjonesisdead: Yes. Not making the announcement isn't to prevent anything on Time Warner's part, but to put the finger on the scale on AOL's behalf. AOL doesn't have subscriber growth (quite the opposite), so the only way they can show earnings growth is by cutting costs, hard. Companies like Time Warner are "on the hook" for a bit after the spinoff (you don't want people suing you for fraudulent conveyance), so they try to save all the good news for the spinoff until after the company is on its own.
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FormerEnglishMajor
10/05/09

@daveyjonesisdead: Yay daveyjones for getting starred!
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Unsolicited Advice
10/05/09

In reply to Why Delay AOL's Mass Layoffs?
Time Warner doesn't want to compensate exiting employees. AOL can't afford a "deep restructuring" to be taking place during the sales process for the IPO to investors. Most importantly, I'd cynically state that the turd in the hand is worth way less than the birds in the bush here and that the sales process isn't exactly employing a frank appraisal of the company's future prospects.
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PaulAchilles
07/29/09

In reply to Optimistic, and Crazy? J-School!
With all due respect to the few wonderful teachers I had at Columbia, I can honestly say it would have been more productive for me to flush $50,000 down the toilet.
Coincidentally, I wrote this today.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lysandra-ohrstrom/jargon-for-jobless-journa_b_246576.html

For new media, broadcast, and print students who had no prior experience, it may have been helpful. Even then, most of the full-time faculty members who dominate your first semester are out-of-touch, bitterly nostalgic, and overly controlling. Every Monday for three hours, I had to listen to my RWI teacher say things like, "Journalism is the hardest job in the world. It's harder than brain surgery" or tell us how we will never understand the media because we don't know the sound that a printing press makes. Spare me.
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snugbug
07/29/09

@PaulAchilles: Hmm.. I got into Columbia J-school but picked USC/Annenberg because they gave me a free ride. Have second-guessed myself in my weakest moments, because I kept hearing that at Columbia you get a beat assigned at the beginning of the year, and you get graded on placing your actual stories in NYC dailies. That they throw you to the wolves and force you to get hands-on experience and clips.

I was chagrined at the time (this was in 2002) because OUR counselors kept rabbiting on and on about abstract "multi-media platform convergence" bulllsh*t, and how our "priorities should be: 1. classwork 2. TA-ship 3. internships/free-lance work, but only IF you still have time."

You're telling me I chose well. Much obliged.

I loved and respected almost all my teaches, they were all of them working journalists not academics. Plus: USC J-school also has a crazy-progressive work/study-abroad summer program in between the two MA years. They force you to live and work abroad as a journalist, and sink or swim in a seriously foreign environment.
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Paul.B.Dodd
07/29/09

In reply to Optimistic, and Crazy? J-School!
Most of the shows on Food Network are pretty stupid. Let's be honest. For a network that's focused on various aspects of epicurean delights, they don't even have the best chef competition show. How many times can they broadcast competitions for the best chicken sandwich in the country?
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Mike Byhoff
07/29/09

In reply to Optimistic, and Crazy? J-School!
So is there a direct correlation between ratings and the number of obnoxious, borderline unwatchable 'personalities' on The Food Network?
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DennyCrane
07/29/09

In reply to Optimistic, and Crazy? J-School!
I'm sorry, but any photo of Mr. Met makes me smile. I wish I could say as much about the team itself.
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Nice Beaver
07/29/09

@DennyCrane: Both Mr. Met and the team make me smile. Go Phils!
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DennyCrane
07/29/09

@Nice Beaver: My team is doing so poorly this year, I can't muster up the enthusiasm to curse at you and say bad things about your mother. I'll just wait for hockey season to do that.
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