ABOUT TIME
Well, it's finally happening. The Wall Street Journal has a story titled "Time Warner to explore reducing Cable stake".
"Inside Time Warner Inc., senior executives are considering what was once unthinkable: whether the world's biggest media company should substantially reduce its cable-TV holdings over time.
Cable has been a core part of the company and its precursors for decades and is now the biggest contributor to profits. But the long-term future of cable, as the Internet emerges as a viable venue for watching TV, is murky. Some within Time Warner wonder whether the company wouldn't be better off if it were to get out of cable and double down on the Web -- where it already owns AOL -- by buying another major Internet company, just as News Corp. acquired MySpace and Google Inc. bought YouTube..."
"The issue will be put before the board at a meeting next month, part of an annual strategic review, say people familiar with the situation. Time Warner management will present several alternatives for future ownership of Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 cable-system operator in the U.S. based on subscribers."
For over a decade now, I've felt it was only a matter of time before one saw a headline and a story along these lines, involving SOME major cable company.
That it happens to be Time Warner first, with it's unique history with the AOL acquisition of 2000, just adds to the irony and sense of coincidence.
It just highlights how long technology-driven trends can somehow take to play out, and how difficult it is to time business moves to be in sync with them, not to mention executing them.
DISCLOSURE: I covered AOL (aka America Online), as an equity research analyst from the mid nineties through it's merger with Time Warner.
Comments