| overview
holdings
warner
chronology
related:
AOL
Warner Music
|
overview
This profile considers Time Warner, the US media group
formerly known as AOL Time Warner.
It covers -
 introduction
The 2000 merger between America Online (AOL)
and Time-Warner - itself the product of the merger between
the Time-Life publishing group and the Warner music, film,
publishing and theme parks conglomerate - was praised
by some analysts as an ideal marriage of content with
carriage.
Others were been less enthusiastic, noting that the conglomerate
had a market value of US$300 billion in January 2000 but
had slumped to US$105 billion two years later. In September
2003 that dissatisfaction was manifested through the Board's
decision to remove 'AOL' from the AOL Time Warner corporate
title. During the same year the group's recording and
music publishing arm was sold for US$2.6 billion
to a consortium led by Edgar Bronfman (former head of
Universal), becoming Warner
Music.
The down-sized group, based of course in the US, operates
in all continents except Antarctica. As of October 2005
it had 84,000 employees, US$42 billion in annual revenue
and a market valuation of US$82 billion
In 2001 it paid £1.15 billion for IPC Group, the UK magazine
group spun off by Reed-Elsevier
in 1998. IPC produces around 100 titles, with aggregate
annual sales of 350 million magazines.
A chronology of its development is here.
Time-Life and Luce
The group traces its origins to launch in 1923 of Time
magazine by Henry Robinson Luce (1898-1967) and Briton
Hadden (1898-1929). Time was initially envisaged as a
Tit-Bits or Readers Digest style compilation
of abstracts, based on the partner's claim that
People
in America are, for the most part, poorly informed. This
is not the fault of the daily newspapers; they print
all the news. People are uninformed because no publication
has adapted itself to the time which busy men are able
to spend on simply keeping informed. Time is
a weekly news-magazine, aimed to serve the modern necessity
of keeping people informed, created on a principle of
complete organisation. Time is interested
- not in how much it includes between its covers - but
in how much it gets off its pages into the minds of
its readers.
Circulation
reached 30,000 by the end of 1923, 70,000 by the end of
1924 and 250,000 in mid 1929 (with advertising revenue
up from US$13,000 to US$414,000), despite residence in
Cleveland from 1925 to 1928.
After Hadden's death in 1929 Luce became editor and majority
shareholder, launching Fortune in 1930, Life
in 1936 and Sports Illustrated in 1954, riding
the wave of photojournalism. He proclaimed that Fortune
would capture "the dignity and beauty, the smartness
and excitement of modern industry" -
Business
takes Fortune to the tip of the wing of the
airplane and through the depths of the ocean along the
bebarnacled cables. It forces Fortune to peer
into dazzling furnaces and into the faces of bankers.
Fortune must follow the chemist to the brink
of worlds newer than Columbus found and it must jog
with freight cars across Nevada's desert. Fortune
is involved in the fashions of flappers and in glass
made from sand. It is packed in millions of cans and
saluted by Boards of Directors on the pinnacles of skyscrapers
... Into all these matters Fortune will inquire
with unbridled curiosity.
Luce
was a passionate Republican, dismissing notions of objectivity
as meaningless
If
everyone hasn't brains enough to know by now that I
am a Presbyterian, a Republican and a capitalist, he
should . I am biased in favor of God, the Republican
Party, and free enterprise. Hadden and I invented
Time. Therefore we had a right to say
what it would be. We're not fooling anybody. Our
readers know where we stand
Luce
appointed Hedley Donovan as editor-in-chief in 1959, retiring
in 1964.
Time Inc expanded into paper production through a merger
with Temple Eastex and launched Home Box Office (HBO)
and Money magazine in 1972, with People Weekly
appearing in 1974. It acquired Southern Progress Corporation
(publisher of Southern Living, Progressive
Farmer, Travel South and Cooking Light)
in 1988 and launched Entertainment Weekly in
1989, bringing its stable of magazines to 25. In that
year it paid US$14 billion for Warner Communications Inc.,
hailed as "the world's largest entertainment and
media concern", albeit one whose publications were
increasingly flaccid.
In 1996 it absorbed Turner Broadcasting. Four years later
America Online (AOL) announced plans
to acquire Time Warner for US$160 billion in what became
the largest corporate merger in US history as of 2001.
Adelphia's
assets were acquired by Time Warner
Cable and Comcast in July 2006.
The
combined purchase price was US$12.5 billion in cash and
Time Warner Cable common stock representing approximately
16% of Time Warner Cable's total common equity.
The deal saw Time Warner Cable gain cable systems passing
approximately 7.6 million homes (roughly 3.3 million basic
subscribers), increasing its subscriptions to some 14.4
million basic subscribers (with 27.6 million homes passed).
Comcast added 1.7 million additional basic subscribers,
increasing its total base to approximately 23.3 million
owned-&-operated customers, with a further 3.5 million
subscribers through different partnerships.
Under agreements entered into in connection with the acquisition,
Adelphia is required to sell at least a third of Time
Warner Cable common stock received in the transaction
or distribute those shares to Adelphia's creditors. Time
Warner Cable concurrently redeemed Comcast's 17.9% interest
in Time Warner Cable Inc.; Time Warner Entertainment (TWE)
redeemed Comcast's 4.7% interest in TWE. In aggregate
those interests represented an effective 21% economic
interest in Time Warner Cable.
Holdings
The
following page provides a map
of Time Warner holdings.
A supplementary profile of the AOL arm is here,
highlighting works such as the adoring aol.com: How
Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and made
millions in the War for the Web (New York: Times 1998)
by Kara Swisher. It can be supplemented by Michael Wolff's
Autumn of the Moguls (New York: HarperCollins
2003) and two Wired profiles from 1995
and 1996.
Studies
There is no comprehensive study of Time Warner and readers
are accordingly reliant on works that look at different
parts of the empire or personalities.
Alec Klein's Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin
& the Collapse of AOL Time Warner (New York:
Simon & Schuster 2003) and Nina Munk's Fools Rush
In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin & the Unmaking of AOL
Time Warner (New York: HarperBusiness 2004) offer
an account of high expectations and disappointment since
1999. Kara Swisher's There Must Be a Pony in Here
Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for
the Digital Future (New York: Crown Business 2003)
is notably less enthusiastic - albeit more self-reflexive
- than her 1998 aol.com.
The
best biographies of the curiously neglected Henry Luce,
whose media offspring are now part of the AOL-Time-Warner
behemoth, are Robert Herzstein's Henry R Luce: A Political
Portrait of the Man who created the American Century (New
York: Scribners 1994) and Henry R. Luce and the Rise
of American News Media (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni
Press 2001), a perceptive study by James Baughman. For
Hadden see The Man Time Forgot: A Tale of Genius,
Betrayal, and the Creation of Time Magazine (New
York: HarperCollins 2006) by Isaiah Wilner.
We were underwhelmed by Wilfred Sheed's Clare Boothe
Luce (New York: Dutton 1982), an insider's account
of Henry's wife. Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare
Boothe Luce (New York: Random 1997) by Sylvia Jukes
Morris is another effort by a friend.
David Halberstam's insightful The Powers That Be
(New York: Knopf 1979) is essential reading.
Outsider, Insider (Darien: Marian-Darien 1998)
is a memoir by Luce's successor Andrew Heiskell, depicting
the supposedly warmer, gentler Time-Life before the Warner
boys moved in. It is complemented by Thomas Stanley Matthews'
Name & Address: An Autobiography (New York:
Simon & Schuste 1960). The three volume Time Inc:
The Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise (New
York: Atheneum 1968-1986) by Robert Elson is a solid corporate
history.
We have noted Richard Clurman's To The End of Time
(New York: Simon & Schuster 1992) for its insider's-eye
view of the Warner takeover of the Time-Life empire in
a previous bout of industry consolidation. Unsurprisingly,
more accountants, nicer offices, more ulcers but none
of the forecast massive profit increases.
Loudon Wainwright's Life: The Great American Magazine
(New York: Ballantine 1986) is another view from inside
the beast of the decline and fall of Life - a jaundiced
reader might conclude that Wainwright on occasion confuses
Life and life - the magazine since resurrected
by the suits at Time-Warner. Dora Hamblin's That Was
the LIFE (New York: Norton 1977) has less verve. Wendy
Kozol's Life's America: Family and Nation in Postwar
Photojournalism (New York: 1994) and Looking at
Life Magazine (Washington: Smithsonian Institution
Press 2001) edited by Erika Doss offer perspectives on
the magazine and its readers. For Fortune see An Economy
of Abundant Beauty: Fortune Magazine and Depression America
(Ithaca: Cornell Uni Press 2004) by Michael Augspurger.
For People and the post-Luce magazines see Jeannette
Walls' gossipy Dish: How Gossip Became The News &
The News Became Just Another Show (New York: Perennial
2000).
Turner and CNN
Ted Turner - somewhat unkindly described as a frenetic
selfpublicist and the Richard Branson of the 1980's -
was captured in the superficial It Ain't As Easy As
It Looks: Ted Turner's Amazing Story (London: Virgin
1994) by Porter Bibb and slightly more substantial Lead,
Follow or Get Out of the Way: The Story of Ted Turner
(New York: Times Books 1981) by Christian Williams.
Media Man: Ted Turner’s Improbable Empire
(New York: Norton 2004) by Ken Auletta is disappointingly
thin
There's a dissenting view in Me & Ted Against the
World: The Unauthorised Story of the Founding of CNN
(New York: HarperCollins 2001) by former partner Reese
Schonfeld.
Among studies of CNN and the news industry we recommend
Carla Johnson's Winning The Global TV News Game
(Boston: Focal 1995), Hank Whittemore's CNN, The Inside
Story (Boston: Little Brown 1991) and Citizen Turner:
The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon (New York: Harcourt
Brace 1995) by Robert Goldberg.
Music
Fredric Dannen's Hit Men: Power Brokers & Fast
Money Inside The Music Business (New York: Vintage
1991) is an acerbic expose of fine times among the contemporary
music business. Norman Lebrecht's When The Music Stops
(New York: Simon & Schuster 1996) provides a similar
account of classical music recording.
Tom King's David Geffen: A Biography Of New Hollywood
(London: Hutchinson 2000) suggests that while industry
structures have changed - more independent production
for example - the personalities haven't. Stephen Singular's
The Rise & Rise of David Geffen (New York:
Birch Lane 1997) is less substantial.
There is a gentler portrait of Geffen in John Seabrook's
Nowbrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of
Culture (Knopf: New York 2000), much hyped but largely
devoted to angst about whether the author should wear
a t-shirt with his tailored suit and whether Tina Brown
really is the Wicked Witch
of the West.
For Atlantic see Music Man: Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic
Records, & the Triumph of Rock 'n' Roll (New York:
1990) by Dorothy Wade & Justine Picardie and Making
Tracks: Atlantic Records and the Growth of a Multi-Billion-Dollar
Industry (London: Panther 1975) by Charlie Gillett.
old and new Hollywood
Connie Bruck, author of The Predator's Ball, provided
the best study of Steve Ross and Warner in Master of
the Game: Steve Ross & the Creation of Time Warner
(New York: Simon & Schuster 1994).
A detailed profile of the Warner production, distribution
and exhibition arm is here
as part of the Cinetext.net site.
Christopher Byron's The Fanciest Dive: What Happened
When The Media Empire of Time/Life Leaped Without Looking
Into The Age of High Tech (New York: Norton 1986)
is overly anecdotal but suggests that the suits at AOLTW
are rediscovering - the hard way - that 'it ain't as easy
as it looks'.
Digital Babylon (New York: Arcade 1999) by John
Geirland & Eva Sonesh-Kedar is a similar account of
Hollywood meets the internet.
For perspectives on the evolving cable television industry
we recommend Vertical Integration in Cable Television
(Cambridge: MIT Press 1997) by David Waterman & Andrew
Weiss.
Personalities and corporate couplings are described in
Stephen Keating's Cutthroat:
High Stakes & Killer Moves on the Electronic Frontier
(Boulder: Johnson 1999), Inside HBO: The Billion Dollar
War Between HBO, Hollywood & the Home Video Revolution
(New York: Dodd Mead 1986) by George Mair and The Billionaire
Shell Game: How Cable Baron John Malone & Assorted
Corporate Titans Invented A Future Nobody Wanted (New
York: Doubleday 1998) by L J Davis.
For the Warner studio see Jack Warner's thin My First
Hundred Years in Hollywood (New York: Random House
1965) and Clown Prince of Hollywood: The Antic Life
& Times of Jack L. Warner (New York: McGraw-Hill
1990) by Bob Thomas.
Charles Higham's Warner Brothers (New York: Scribner
1975) concentrates on the warts; Here's Looking at
You, Kid: 50 Years of Fighting, Working, and Dreaming
at Warner Bros (Boston: Little-Brown 1976) by James
Silke looks at the stars. The Warner Bros. Story
(New York: Crown 1979) by Clive Hirschhorn and Inside
Warner Bros. (1935-1951) (New York: Viking 1986) offer
photos and anecdotes.
Books
For the book publishing arm see One Hundred and Fifty
Years of Publishing, 1837-1987 (Boston: Little, Brown
1987), a corporate history. The Book-of-the-Month Club
is dissected in The Making of Middlebrow Culture
(Durham: Uni of North Carolina Press 1992) by Joan Shelley
Rubin.
next
page (Time Warner holdings)
|
|
