News Munchies
AOL Chief Says It's Time for ALOha
Originally Posted
Updated
Media behemoth AOL Time Warner is going back to its roots.
Although AOL founder Steve Case remains chairman of the mega-media company, CEO Robert Pittman has succumbed to the company's financial free fall and handed in his resignation.
Two former Time Warner executives were named to top positions, putting "old media" guys back at the head of the company that AOL purchased when Internet wasn't a dirty word.
Although AOL dominated the Internet during the consumer boom of the late '90s -- who isn't now using most of their ubiquitous mailed CD-ROMs for coffee table coasters? -- they haven't converted a large number of their customers from dial-up to high-speed Internet services. "You've got mail," all right, but at a slow speed.
They also have done little to enhance Time Warner properties, including Time Warner Cable, the second-largest cable TV operator in the country, HBO, Turner Networks, the WB network, Warner Brothers movie studios, New Line Cinema, and, of course, Time magazine.
We doubt that this change will affect our many patrons who use AOL, so our primary concern is that they don't screw around with HBO's "Sex in the City."
[For the record, the author owns some AOL common stock and occasionally gets sex in the city.]