Aol Time Warner

Criticized for staying behind the scenes for much of the last year, AOL Time Warner Inc. Chairman Steve Case is under pressure to stage a comeback. Some company executives want Case--the billionaire founder of America Online--to move his full-time office from the Internet company's old headquarters in Virginia to New York, where most of the big decisions are now made. Others hope Case will take a more visible role on Capitol Hill, lobbying legislators and regulators.

SERIES Sports Jobs With Junior Seau: The former NFL linebacker takes a turn as a reporter facing a deadline while covering the Florida vs. Georgia football game (7 and 10 p.m. VS). This Emotional Life: The episode "Rethinking Happiness" examines behavior that fosters positive emotions includes meditation, compassion, forgiveness and altruism (9 p.m. KCET). Man vs. Wild: Bear Grylls creates critical fresh water and uses tribal techniques to fish while deserted on a Panamanian island in the season premiere of this survival series (9 p.m. Discovery)

Thursday's Federal Trade Commission approval of the America Online-Time Warner merger cleared the way for creation of the world's largest information and entertainment company. The FTC rightly curtailed the $106-billion company's enormous market power by, among other things, requiring it to lease its cable lines to AOL's competitors on fair terms. It is now up to the telecommunications regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, to make open access a rule for the entire cable industry.

In 2000, America Online Inc. used its soaring stock price to gobble up Time Warner Inc. and create the world's largest media conglomerate. Nearly a decade later, it's Time Warner that's spitting out AOL. Time Warner said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it intended to spin off the struggling Internet property, whose advertising revenue plunged 20% in the first quarter. AOL's decline contributed to falling sales and profit at Time Warner.

AOL Time Warner Inc.'s turnaround plans have bumped up against regulatory conditions forced on the media company when its giant merger was approved in 2001, sparking a recent request to ease one key limit.

AOL Time Warner Inc. chief Gerald Levin ended his 10-year reign over the world's largest media conglomerate Thursday as many shareholders blame him for selling the prized Time Warner assets to an overvalued Internet giant at a fire-sale price. Looking gaunt and distraught at the company's annual shareholder meeting Thursday, Levin turned over his job as chief executive to protege Richard Parsons with a plea to investors for "faith, hope and, above all, patience."

The real issue at stake in America Online's decision to buy Time Warner is not the triumph of the new media over the old. Instead, it's whether New York, the unrivaled capital of the old American national industrial economy, will dominate the new American global information economy. Whether it succeeds in doing so will depend, in large part, on how its West Coast rivals--Southern California, the Bay Area and Redmond, Wash.

1. Price of Energy Soars: Energy worries returned with a vengeance, as rising demand trumkcped constrained supplies to boost every key commodity to 10-year or even all-time highs. American consumers were forced to think about energy--and reconsider their seemingly insatiable thirst foxr it--in ways unseen since the oil shocks of the 1970s. Californians suffered perhaps most of all, enduring what one observer called "a three-ring circus" of woe.

In June 2000, as they completed negotiations over a merger that would create the world's second-largest entertainment conglomerate, Edgar Bronfman Jr. pulled aside Jean-Marie Messier, whose Vivendi was about to take over Bronfman's Seagram Co., the owner of Universal Studios and other marquee properties. "You know what they say in the U.S. about entrepreneurial families?" Bronfman asked, according to Messier's recollection.

Acknowledging deeper problems at America Online than previously reported, AOL Time Warner Inc. said that it would restate eight quarters of financial results and reduce its revenue by $190 million as part of an in-house review of its troubled Internet unit, which also is the focus of federal probes.

Netscape Navigator, the world's first commercial Web browser and the launchpad of the Internet boom, will be pulled off life support Feb. 1 after a 13-year run. Its current caretakers, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, decided to kill further development and technical support to focus on growing the company as an advertising business. Netscape's usage dwindled with Microsoft Corp.'s entry into the browser business, and Netscape all but faded away after the birth of its open-source cousin, Firefox.

Harry Potter worked his magic, but continuing struggles at AOL cast a pall over Time Warner Inc.'s third-quarter financial results. The world's largest media company's movie division was one of the bright spots in Wednesday's quarterly report. Revenue there jumped 33%, boosted by the strong box-office performance of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Still, the AOL slowdown remains a big headache for President Jeffrey L. Bewkes, who inherits the chief executive job Jan.

AOL, Time Warner Inc.'s Internet unit, plans to buy online advertising company Quigo Technologies Inc. to give customers more control over where their ads appear, according to two people with knowledge of the purchase. AOL may pay as much as $340 million for New York-based Quigo, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the deal hasn't been made public. The announcement may come as early as today, they said.

Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday dumped the head of AOL in favor of a career NBC Universal executive as the Internet unit struggles to transform itself into a free, ad-supported website. The replacement of AOL Chairman and Chief Executive Jon Miller with Randy Falco underscores AOL's struggle to find its place within Time Warner and in a rapidly changing Internet economy.

Veteran NBC Universal executive Randy Falco is being considered for a high-level job at Time Warner Inc.'s AOL division, according to two executives close to the situation. AOL's courting of Falco comes as the Internet site is trying to increase advertising. As president and chief operating officer of NBC Universal Television Group, Falco is in charge of NBC's sales force and other business operations.

America Online co-founder Steve Case, who orchestrated his company's often-ridiculed acquisition of Time Warner Inc., resigned from the media giant's board Monday -- just as the era of digital entertainment he envisioned is taking shape. Case's departure comes as AOL's stature within Time Warner has grown. Once a weight around the company's neck, AOL is now seen as crucial to delivering Time Warner's vast array of content, and rivals such as Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc.

In a surprise move, AOL Time Warner Inc. removed Mike Kelly as chief financial officer of the media conglomerate, transferring him to serve as chief operating officer of its Internet business, which has been hit by slowing growth. Kelly moves from a position with oversight over the financial functions of the entire company to managing day-to-day operations of one business unit-albeit its largest as measured by revenue.

AOL Time Warner Chief Executive Gerald M. Levin was paid a $10-million bonus last year, largely for successfully pulling off the company's $95-billion merger, according to financial statements filed Tuesday. The bonus, up 11% from the previous year, was on top of Levin's $1-million base salary. AOL Time Warner Chairman Stephen M. Case got a $1.1-million bonus on top of his $725,000 salary.

For those who knew Gerald Levin as the almost Machiavellian 80-hour-a-week chief executive of AOL Time Warner, it will be hard to imagine him as he was this summer in a boat off the Caribbean island of Bimini. When a group of dolphins came swimming by, Levin, although not a great swimmer, donned his snorkel and jumped in. "It was an unbelievable metaphysical experience. You're entering their world," says Levin softly. As he recalls the moment, his voice is modulated to just above a whisper.

Turning around America Online will do more for parent Time Warner Inc.'s stock than the steps sought by investor Carl Icahn, Chief Executive Richard Parsons said Wednesday. Time Warner is exploring "structural and strategic" changes to boost sales at its AOL Internet unit, Parsons said at a media conference in New York.