Time Warner’s (TWX) CNN unveiled its new Web site Thursday evening in a presentation that was part Hollywood and part Apple (AAPL).

All week long, the network had been touting the event, dubbed “The Unveiling.” Top CNN executives and invited reporters packed a corporate screening room on the 10th floor of the Time Warner Center as KC Estenson, CNN.com’s general manager, took the stage. He looked like somewhat like Steve Jobs in a dark sweater, jeans and wireless microphone.

“It is a revolution for us,” Mr. Estenson said, as he flashed the first glimpse of the new CNN.com, which goes live on Monday. “This is a really special event.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

A new executive team at MySpace is trying to reignite the brand by focusing on areas like music, videos and games as users abandon the social-networking site for cooler destinations.

MySpace, which is holding a conference this week for its global ad-sales staff, needs to lure visitors back and kick-start advertising revenue, ad executives say. Research firm eMarketer estimates U.S. ad spending on the site will be $495 million this year, down 15 percent from $585 million in 2008.

The basic challenge is similar to the one facing big Internet companies, such as Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL and Yahoo (YHOO), that are under pressure to reinvent themselves for fickle audiences.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Barry Diller, IAC’s (IACI) chief executive, said Wednesday that he’s not interested in acquiring AOL after the Internet business is spun off from its parent company, Time Warner (TWX).

“I have no interest in purchasing AOL, but there are kinds of alliances that are possible for us,” Diller said at an investor conference in New York. “Those maybe will happen, or maybe they won’t happen.”

Time Warner–unable to sell AOL on favorable terms–is planning to spin it off as an independent public company, though it remains a source of acquisition speculation in media circles.

With its $1.6-billion cash pile, IAC is a potential buyer with a stable of Internet businesses that have clear overlap with AOL.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

While Time-Warner (TWX) moves closer to the spin-off of AOL, the Street is anticipating what they might do after that. An obvious option: shed the magazine business.

In a research note picking up coverage of the company today, Caris & Co. analyst David Miller proposes that the company’s publishing arm is likely head for its “swan song.” While noting that no announcement has been issued by Time-Warner on this, he writes that “it would not surprise us to see management dispose of this business, either through an outright sale, or through equity carve out, though not until the AOL transaction has been completed.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The U.S. Supreme Court today cleared the way for Cablevision (CVC) to offer a network DVR service, allowing consumers to record copies of television programming “in the cloud,” rather than on set-top boxes.

Without comment, the court refused to review a Court of Appeals ruling that rejected claims by film studios and television networks that the network DVR approach would infringe copyrights.

Cablevision first announced plans for the service in 2006, but it has been tied up in litigation–until now. Among the companies opposed to the concept were Time Warner (TWX), CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS).

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Does Liberty Media (LINTA) want to own AOL?

CNBC’s David Faber raised the question this morning at the tail end of a long interview with Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei. And Maffei indicated that Liberty, the media empire controlled by billionaire investor John Malone, actually does have some interest in the Time Warner (TWX) unit, which is currently on track to be spun off as a separate company via an IPO.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

For people who hope the openness and flexibility of the Internet will come to mainstream television, the deal announced yesterday between Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner (TWX) is great news. They just don’t see yet how it blows apart the tight bond between cable content and cable delivery.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Newsweek’s recent decision to get out of the news-digesting business and reposition itself as a high-end magazine selling in-depth commentary and reportage follows Time magazine’s emergency retrenchment along similar lines. It accelerates a process by which the 76-year-old weekly will purposely reduce its circulation from 2.7 million to a bit more than half of that. (Its circulation was nearly 3.5 million in 1988.) Likewise, Time’s circulation, which 20 years ago was close to 5 million, is now at 3.4 million.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Time Warner’s (TWX) hiring of Tim Armstrong to run AOL is, to misquote another Armstrong, a small step for AOL but a giant leap for Time Warner.

Whether or not the former Google (GOOG) executive can turn around the AOL business, his hiring clearly sets up AOL to be spun off. That is a step Time Warner must take, having wasted years trying to fix or find a buyer for AOL.

Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes shouldn’t dawdle in making the formal decision to spin off AOL.

Now that the Time Warner Cable spinoff is almost done, he has achieved tangible progress toward streamlining Time Warner into a more-defined entertainment business. A quick AOL spinoff would free up Mr. Bewkes to deal with the Time Inc. magazine business.

Read the rest of this post

The Web has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to evolve and leave embedded franchises struggling or in the dirt. Prodigy, AOL were early candidates. Today Yahoo (YHOO) and eBay (EBAY) are struggling, and I think Google (GOOG) is tipping down the same path. This cycle of creative destruction–more recently framed as the innovators dilemma–is both fascinating and hugely dislocating for businesses. To see this immense franchises melt before your very eyes–is hard to say the least.

I saw it up close at AOL. I remember back in 2000, just after the new organizational structure for AOL / Time Warner (TWX) was announced there was a three-day HBS training program for 80 or so of us at AOL. I loathe these HR programs–but this one was amazing. I remember Kotter as great (fascinating set of videos on leadership, wish I had them recorded), Colin Powell was amazing and then on the second morning Clay Christensen spoke to the group.

Read the rest of this post

When AT&T (T) grudgingly agreed to break itself up 25 years ago, it was seen as a truly momentous event in the history of the telecommunications industry. Today, however, some experts question not only whether the breakup of AT&T was necessary, but whether it even had any long-term impact on the telecom market.

The breakup deal forced AT&T to spin off its local divisions that would then become local exchange carriers, and in return, AT&T was allowed to keep its long distance services division.

However, the rise of wireless services as alternatives to landlines, as well as the entrance of cable companies such as Comcast (CMCSA) and Time-Warner (TWX) into the VoIP market, has led some to conclude that the breakup of Ma Bell is irrelevant to the current telecom market.

Read the rest of this post

Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes says he’ll have a decision on the future of AOL “soon.” That can’t come fast enough for AOL boss Randy Falco, who we’re told is now fuming about the limbo state his company has entered: “When is New York going to sell us?” we’re told he muttered in earshot of his lieutenants recently.

Meanwhile, Matt Marshall at Venturebeat doesn’t have a timeline, but he does have a theory about who’s going to buy the company: Both Yahoo and Microsoft. Matt’s scenario, which he says Microsoft is “quietly readying” (according to “sources close to AOL”): Yahoo snaps up AOL, then Microsoft buys both companies.

Read the rest of this post

Behold the Power of Potter. Time Warner (TWX) yesterday disclosed it won’t put out the new Harry Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” this November as originally planned, and instead will make it a Summer 2009, release–specifically, for July 17 of next year. That’s going to hurt Electronic Arts (ERTS), which will lose a 2008 holiday game title that represents about $150 million in revenue this year, according to analysts. The revenue and profit should come back the following year, though.

Read the rest of this post

Former AOL boss Steve Case virtually fled to his Hawaiian pineapple farm after the AOL-Time Warner merger he engineered in 2000 vaporized much of the group’s combined market value. Now that Liberty Media chairman John Malone is open to swapping his 2.8 percent stake in Time Warner for AOL’s dial-up business, the extent of Case’s heroics on behalf of AOL shareholders has become clearer.

Read the rest of this post

Liberty Media (LCAPA) is “open” to swapping its stake in Time Warner (TWX) for AOL’s dial-up Internet access business, Liberty Chairman John Malone said Monday, Reuters reported.

Malone said there have not been any discussions on the concept so far, however.

“Clearly, an exit from the Time Warner equity stake into a cash-generating asset would be attractive, but at the current time, none have been proposed that we could take action on,” Malone said on a conference call with analysts.

Liberty owns about 103 million shares, or 2.8 percent of Time Warner.

Read the rest of this post