SPOTLIGHT: Time Warner needs a visionary

Spotlight On...Time Warner
Time Warner has a new boss and if the talk from New York is true we may see its assets--Cable, AOL and its media business--broken up. Every start up dreams of a Time Warner--with more money than sense--who in their desperation to catch up pays mega-billions. That of course was the story of AOL. Someone forgot to tell Time Warner about broadband and seven years after paying $164 billion for AOL, the once king of dial-up is an also ran in the web 2.0 world of broadband. Time Warner is, of course, not the only media company who has struggled with the Internet. The latest U.S. newspaper circulation numbers show a further 3 percent decline, continuing a 10-year trend, as readers--and advertisers--switch to the net. But when the history of who survived the digital revolution is written, the evidence suggests there will not be many traditional media companies. With few exceptions economic history tells us institutions find it almost impossible to transition from one technology to another. Article