Change is in the air at media conglomerate Time Warner, whose shares are down 14 percent this year. The question is, what will change, exactly how fast will they happen and who will lead the charge?
The company detailed some of that strategy on Monday, saying that it would move AOL’s corporate headquarters to New York City — where its advertising executives are already based — from Dulles, Virginia, amid a realignment of its advertising business. It also set a co-branding deal with Hewlett-Packard. Time Warner’s tweaking of AOL , however, come even as some Wall Street analysts call for the unit to be sold.
Contrast that change against what AdWeek calls “Missing Programming Initiatives” at AOL — ideas presented last April to media buyers, earmarked for 2007-2008. Little has been heard since.
At the same time, it appears that Jeffrey Bewkes is expected to be confirmed as Time Warner’s next chief executive before the end of the year, and start the job as early as Jan. 1, five months before current CEO Richard Parsons’ contract expires, according to the Wall Street Journal. (Parsons would remain chairman.) However, the paper said Bewkes may not take major action — associates say he is worried that a major restructuring may not move the stock price.
Keep an eye on:
- Nokia said it is buying U.S. cellphone screen advertising firm Enpocket as the world’s top handset maker pushes into a market which is seen ballooning in coming years. (Reuters)
- French media group Vivendi is in advanced talks to buy a stake of about 33 percent in Dubai-based Oger Telecom, which runs fixed and mobile phone services in Turkey, a cellular business in South Africa and internet services in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon. ( Reuters)
- The union that represents many Dow Jones & Co Inc employees supports a contract offer from the company that would provide a 3 percent salary increase to employees. The offer would cover about 2,000 employees, including reporters at Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. ( Reuters)
- SpiralFrog, the ad-supported music site, made its debut on Sunday evening, opening with more than 770,000 songs and 3,500 music videos from numerous independent labels and Universal Music Group. ( CNET)
- Yahoo is testing an experimental social network service called Mash that makes it easy for Yahoo users to share tidbits of their lives with friends and family online. (Reuters)
- Cable TV’s HBO and broadcasters NBC and ABC — tied the race for the most Primetime Emmys on Sunday with six apiece. Watch a Reuters video report below:
(Photo: Reuters file)
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I have had nothing but problems with Time Warner, they literally had my business shut down for two weeks. I ordered their cable internet & emphasized that there needs to be a smooth transition from my previous supplier to them because I work out of my home, they assured me there would be no problems. I cancelled the service from my previous supplier a week later to make sure nothing went wrong, well it did. I was without an internet connection for two weeks, they sent technicians out five times in those two weeks but never diagnosed or fixed the problem so I switched back to AT&T. They were rude on the phone every time I called & they even tried to charge me for 3 weeks of service that I never got and they cost me about $17,000 in business lost. I would never try to use Time Warner for anything again after the nightmare they put me through. They are an example of a company that got too big too fast to care for its customers any longer.
- Posted by Bryce Mirtle