Time Warner

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Time Warner Inc.
Type Public (NYSE: TWX)
Founded Merger between Time Inc. and Warner Communications (1990); subsequently purchased by AOL (2001)
Headquarters New York City, New York (incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware) [1]
Key people Richard D. Parsons, Chairman and CEO
Wayne Pace, CFO
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, President and COO
Industry Broadcasting, publishing, Internet, telecommunications
Products See list of assets owned by Time Warner.
Revenue Image:green up.png$44.70 billion USD (2006)
Employees 87,000 (2005)
Website timewarner.com

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), formerly two separate companies as Warner Communications, Inc. and Time Inc. before the Time-Warner merger in 1990, is the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered in New York City, with major operations in film, television, publishing, Internet service and telecommunications. Among its subsidiaries are AOL, Home Box Office, New Line Cinema, Time Inc., Time Warner Cable, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Cartoon Network, and CNN.

Contents

[edit] History

Warner Communications was established in 1972 when Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations.

It was the parent company for Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Music Group during the 1970s and 1980s. It also owned DC Comics and Mad, as well as a majority stake in Garden State National Bank (an investment it was ultimately required to sell pursuant to requirements under the Bank Holding Company Act). Warner's initial divestiture efforts led by Garden State CEO Charles A. Agemian were blocked by Garden State board member William A. Conway in 1978; a revised transaction was later completed in 1980. Warner made considerable profits (and later losses) with Atari, which it owned from 1976 to 1984. In 1976, Nolan Bushnell sold his Atari company to Warner Communications for an estimated $28 - $32 million. While part of Warner, Atari achieved its greatest success, selling millions of Atari 2600s and computers. At its peak, Atari accounted for a third of Warner's annual income and was the fastest-growing company in the history of the United States at the time.

In the 1970s, Warner expanded under the guidance of CEO Steve Ross and formed a joint venture with American Express, named Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, which held cable channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and Showtime. Warner bought out American Express's half in 1984, and sold the venture a year later to Viacom, which renamed it MTV Networks.

In February 1983, Warner expanded their interests to baseball. Under the direction of Ceasar P. Kimmel, executive vice president, bought 48 percent of the Pittsburgh Pirates for $10 million. It then put up its share for sale in November 1984 following losses of $6 million. The team's elderly majority owner, John W. Galbreath, soon followed suit after learning of Warner's actions. [2]

Turner Broadcasting logo This image is a candidate for speedy deletion. It will be deleted after seven days from the date of nomination.
Turner Broadcasting logo
This image is a candidate for speedy deletion. It will be deleted after seven days from the date of nomination.

In 1984, due to the video game crash of 1983, Warner sold the consumer division of Atari to Jack Tramiel. It kept the arcade division and renamed it Atari Games. They sold Atari Games to Namco in 1985, and repurchased it in 1994, renaming it Time-Warner Interactive, until it was sold to Midway Games in 1996. Meanwhile, In 1987, it was announced that Warner Communications and Time Inc. were to merge. The last thing Warner did before the merger closed in 1989 was to buy out Lorimar-Telepictures. In early 1990, the combined companies were named Time Warner. This company subsequently acquired Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System in October 1996.

Time Warner had also been owner of the Six Flags Theme Parks chain during the 1990s after near bankruptcy. It sold all Six Flags parks and properties to Oklahoma based Premier Parks on April 1st, 1998.

In 2000, a new company called AOL Time Warner was created when AOL purchased Time Warner for US$164bn.[3] The deal, announced on 10 January 2000[4] and officially filed on 11 February 2000,[5] employed a merger structure in which each original company merged into a newly created entity. The Federal Trade Commission cleared the deal on December 14, 2000,[6] and gave final approval on January 11, 2001;[citation needed] the company completed the merger later that day.[7] The deal was approved on the same day by the Federal Communications Commission,[5] and had already been cleared the European Commission on 11 October 2000.[8] The shareholders of AOL owned 55% of the new company while Time Warner shareholders owned only 45%,[4] meaning that the smaller AOL had in fact bought out the far larger Time Warner.

After the merger, the profitability of the ISP division (America Online) decreased. Meanwhile, the market valuation of similar independent internet companies drastically fell. As a result, the value of the America Online division dropped significantly. This forced a goodwill write down, causing AOL Time Warner to report a loss of $99 billion in 2002 - at the time, the largest loss ever reported by a company.

In response to the huge loss in 2002, the company dropped the "AOL" from its name, and removed Steve Case as executive chairman in favor of Richard Parsons, with AOL remaining a part of the company. Case resigned from the Time Warner board on October 31, 2005.[9]

Since the merger, a number of transactions have taken place:

[edit] The CW Television Network

See also: The CW Television Network

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner announced that they were to create a new broadcast network, The CW Television Network. The network officially debuted on September 18, 2006. The network formally debuted on September 20 with the 2 hour premiere of America's Next Top Model.

The network is the result of a merger of The WB Television Network (a Time Warner holding) and UPN (a CBS Corporation holding). CBS Corporation and Time Warner each own 50% of the network. Tribune Broadcasting (previously owned a 25% stake on The WB) and CBS Corporation contributed its stations as new network affiliates.

[edit] Services

Time Warner Cable has since re-expanded and offers the following services:

[edit] Time Inc.

The Time Inc. division publishes approximately 150 titles worldwide. It is the leading magazine publisher in the U.S. and UK, and is understood to be profitable at US$5 billion in annual revenues.[10] As of January 2007, the unit is experiencing downsizing.[11] In January 2007, the Bonnier Magazine Group agreed to acquire 18 magazines that Time Inc. was divesting. The magazines in the package employed 550 people and included Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Ski, Yachting, and TransWorld Snowboarding, as well as 11 other titles that were part of Time Inc.'s Time4Media Group. Also included were Parenting, and Baby Talk, which were part of the Parenting Group.[12]

[edit] Financials

In 2004, Time Warner's market capitalization was $84 billion. When the AOL-Time Warner merger was announced in January 2000, the combined market capitalization was $280 billion.

For fiscal year 2002 the company reported a $99 billion loss on its income statement [13] because of $100 billion in non-recurring charges, almost all from a writedown of the goodwill (intangible asset) from the merger in 2000. (The value of the AOL portion of the company had dropped sharply with the collapse of the Internet boom, in the early 2000s.)

[edit] Commercial properties

Time Warner Inc. owns several large properties in New York City; certain buildings in the Rockefeller Center complex and adjacent office towers house its main offices; one of which houses a CNN news studio. In late 2003, Time Warner finished construction of a new twin-tower complex, designed to serve as additional office space, facing Columbus Circle on the southwestern edge of Central Park. Originally called the AOL Time Warner Center, the 755-foot, 55-floor mixed-use property was renamed Time Warner Center when the company itself was renamed.

[edit] Board of directors

As of Jan 2007.

[edit] Senior Executives

[edit] Time Warner Inc.

[edit] Subsidiaries

[edit] Competition

Time Warner faces industry competition from traditional media companies such as CBS Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, News Corporation, and Viacom, as well as online search portals such as Yahoo!, and Google for competition of viewer attention which translates to ad sales. According to the recent 10Q, in order to remain competitive, Time Warner and AOL must keep pace with rapid technological changes on the internet. Time Warner's business may be severely impacted by the increasing 'piracy' of feature films, television programming and other content which decreases company revenues.[14]

AOL's subscriber base is declining, and declines are expected to continue, adversely affecting subscription and advertising revenue. As more individuals are using non-PC devices to access the Internet, AOL is under pressure to secure placement of its services and applications on mobile devices.

Box office receipts and the growth rate of DVD sales have recently been declining, which adversely affects Warner Brothers' growth prospects and revenues.[15]

[edit] Controversy

Time Warner has been criticized by [missing reference] for its funding associated with Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood has been accused by anti-abortion organizations of agreeing not to report cases of statutory rape to the authorities; for example, an anti-abortion activist, posing as a 13-year-old impregnated by her 22-year-old boyfriend, called over 800 clinics requesting an abortion. She claimed that in most cases, the clinics agreed to her request not to report the boyfriend to the police for statutory rape.[16]. Pro-life groups have listed Planned Parenthood as a boycott target, including Life Decisions International. This in turn means they will boycott corporations that fund Planned Parenthood, including Time Warner Inc. The group claims to have stopped 157 companies from funding the "abortion committing goliath." [17]

[edit] Past names

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Corporate Governance, TimeWarner website
  2. ^ Galbreaths to Sell Pirates PITTSBURGH, New York Times
  3. ^ Top Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Deals (2007-03-28). Retrieved on 2007-05-05.
  4. ^ a b America Online and Time Warner Will Merge to Create World's First Internet-Age Media and Communications Company. Time Warner corporate homepage (10 January 2000). Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
  5. ^ a b Federal Communications Commission (25 March 2003). America Online-Time Warner Merger Page. Federal Communications Commission homepage. Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
  6. ^ Federal Trade Commission (14 December 2000). FTC Approves AOL/Time Warner Merger with Conditions. Federal Trade Commission website. Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
  7. ^ Patrick Ross, Evan Hansen (11 January 2001). AOL, Time Warner complete merger with FCC blessing. CNET News.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
  8. ^ EU statement: AOL, Time Warner. BBC News Online (11 October 2000). Retrieved on 2007-05-06.
  9. ^ CNN.com
  10. ^ NYPost
  11. ^ NYTimes January 2007
  12. ^ NY Post
  13. ^ TWX annual statement
  14. ^ Time Warner profile
  15. ^ Recent 10Q Report
  16. ^ "Pro-Life Group Launches Undercover Sting", Fox News, 2002-05-31. Retrieved on 2007-03-12. 
  17. ^ Life Decisions International - Press Room. Life Decisions International. Retrieved on 2007-08-14.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner"
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