AOL-Time Warner's Money Pit

ElitusPrime writes: "There's an interesting analysis of the recently released balance sheet net worth of AOL Time Warner. The net worth of the largest media conglomerate on earth has now been slashed by more than one-third. The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that the merger never should have happened. But there's some interesting financial analysis to show exactly how bad the merger has been for Time Warner."

The reason is simple

[flacco]

AOL just didn't do enough advertising. Especially on its TW media outlets.

Nice office!

[TheNecromancer]

Did you know, for example, that AOL Time Warner, at latest tally, has nearly 13 million square feet of office space on its books?

And that's just the CEO's office!

But why?

[apathyruiner]

AOL charges $10+ more a month than most other ISPs how could they be losing money?

well duh...

[edrugtrader]

time warner employee's all had to switch to aol service, and that shit is expensive!

Re:well duh...

[PsimanX1]

And then had to switch back when it all went horribly wrong...

Wasn't that surprising?

Jeez.

[SlashChick]

From the article:

"You can get as much of a return by investing in a U.S. government bond these days as you can from throwing your money into the AOL Time Warner black hole."

Uncle Sam should definitely co-opt this for advertising: "U.S. savings bonds: not as bad as investing in AOL."

Does that mean...

[KingKire64]

Aol cant afford to send me those dopey cd/frisbees anymore!! Yippee

To paraphrase comic book guy

[Aiku1337]

"Worst merger...ever"

It's all those CD's

[teslatug]

They probably just wanted to send out a couple of samples, but due to programming deficiencies ended up in an infinite loop and now they can't stop sending people free CD's.

Cost of CDs

[Servo5678]

Finally, after all these years, the costs of sending out free AOL CDs has finally caught up with them!

VA Money Pit

[isolation]

Slashdot it one to talk about money pits.

AOLTW's Future

[Anonymous Coward]

An Open Letter to our Stock Holders

We here at AOL Time Warner believe that our quality service and ability to deliver content rich applications can be leveraged in many areas of society. Therefore we have instituted an agressive expansion plan that will allows us to better serve our customers and the American Society at large. We are excited about the future of AOLTimeWarner and hope you will be too.
First, We have managed to secure the National Public School system in an asset swap with the US Government (The FBI REALLY wanted to get thier hands on our extensive Consumer Databases, plus the Republicans are in power.)
Secondly, we have bought out the rights for the bible (for our exclusive broadcast rights in China) Jesus now isn't only pitching Peace and Love, but also Gillmore Girls.
Finally, we have obtained exclusive rights to the Milky Way from the governing body (this was a hard negotiation, wich boiled down to us stopping all transmissions of Smallville into space) Now rednecks (our number 3 customers, behind Teenagers and Algae) will no longer have to worry about any "Recreational Anal Probes"
I am pleased to bring you these changes and I hope to see you at the next stock holders meeting.
Richard Parsons, CEO

Re:The reason is simple

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, maybe they should have sent more AOL CD's, not only do they make for great advertising, they make for great brand recognition when you see AOL every time you pick up a drink

Re:The reason is simple

[EnderWiggnz]

but then you would risk damaging valuable bytes !!!

you beast, how dare you treat a trophy of programming prowess with such utter disrespect.

you young man, should be ashamed of yourself.

*huff* *pufff* *fffff*