Media Conglomerates - Who Owns What?

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Who Owns What? The AOL Time Warner Merger

Time Warner was the world’s largest media company. AOL was the world’s largest internet provider. And on January 11, 2001, a year after their merger was announced, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the AOL acquisition of Time Warner. The merger will help the internet grow even more and become the central point for entertainment by “speeding up the development of interactive television and online entertainment as the company funnels Time Warner content onto AOL’s network” (Davidson, 2001). As AOL Time Warner expands in the near future and companies are combined or new companies are starter, the integrity of journalism could be jeopardized.
The FCC under the conditions aimed at protecting rival instant messaging providers and small internet service providers approved the $100 billion purchase. FCC Chairman William Kennard defended the decision by stating “We could not find (the deal) was in the public interest without conditions designed to protect the open competitive nature of the Internet” (Davidson, 2001).
Through the merger AOL acquired the rights to some of entertainments most familiar names such as Time and People magazines, HBO, and CNN. The deal will bring together Time Warner’s traditional media properties (magazines, television, music, movies) with AOL’s news media services that have a subscription base of over 20 million and access to many internet services and the world wide web. Steve Case, chairman and CEO of AOL will become the chairman of the merged company, and Gerald Levin, Time Warner Chairman and CEO will be the new company’s Chief Executive. AOL Time Warner together operates six different businesses, with hundreds of companies in each business (AOL Time Warner, 2001). This deal heralds the logical next step in the morphing of traditional and Internet media.
To grow efficiently in the new millennium, the merger of th...