Time Warner and AOL Merger
Time Warner Corporation has numerous subsidiaries which are moving media materials across media boundaries. They are doing this in numerous ways, based on synergies and joint ventures. For example some of these include gaining more access to cable lines by a joint venture with US West, and merging with AOL. They are also using a tactic called co-development as properties are knitted together by sister companies both interested in profiting off of them. This is a type of synergy because it occurs within one media conglomerate itself, and it encourages cross-media activity between the two sister companies. Time Warner can place some of its music on its television shows or movies, or write about its musicians in their magazines. The theory is that these different media would help promote one another and sell more records, more advertising,more tickets, and then certainly more revenue.
Terry Hershey, president of Time Warner Interactive's Entertainment division says "We have now built into our process the protocol that when we look at a project we automatically say, what other applications are there?" Time Warner Interactive is a subsidiary of the media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. and is currently making use of this idea of co-development.
For example, in the fall of 1994 they launched a CD-ROM version of the classic "Peter and the Wolf" at the same time that Warner Books published a print edition and Time Warner Audiobooks debuted its cassette edition as well as a CD version. "Each 'Peter' product will talk about the other products," says Hershey. "The audiocasette will have a teaser for the other products, for instance and the book jacket will mention the CD-ROM." There were also ideas about creating a television special on Peter and the Wolf which would raise awareness about everything on the market. There are numerous cases of these sister companies working together.
In 1995 Warner Books and Time Warner Interactive launched their own version of a new story which was written specifically to be both a novel and a CD-ROM. It was to be called "Mirage" and was a story about two sisters. The music that accompanied it ranged from opera to classical to alternative rock. Co-author Matthew Costello stressed using multiple types of media to make the story have more of an emotional impact on the audien...
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... the Wolf shows how these synergies within a conglomeration can help that company to advertise one product through the marketing of a different product. Time Warner is making use of both of these techniques to improve their profits and get their products out in different media forms and through different media boundaries.
Bibliography:
Works cited:
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In our internal analysis of the merger between Comcast Corporation and Time Warner Cable (TWC) we looked at the internal strengths and weaknesses of the acquired company. By analyzing these strengths and weaknesses we determined that Comcast Corp. proposal to acquire TWC will have potential benefits. Comcast Corporation is already a giant, owning the nation’s largest cable distribution network and TWC is the second largest cable distributor serving roughly 12 million households. A combination of the two companies is said to generate multiple pro-consumer and pro-competitive benefits (Grimes 1).
Palmer, Robert. "POP LIFE - New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 17 June 2010. Web. 17 June 2010. .
Television, the phone, and the internet. These inventions have uniquely shaped the 20th century and have led to the 21st century being known as the age of information. These services are the primary ways we communicate, express ourselves, and reach out in our ever increasing global world. In the United States, these services are provided by a number of different firms, chief among them is Comcast, being the largest provider of Cable and internet in America, and a large telephone provider. Next to it stands Time Warner Cable, the second largest provider of cable in the United States. The decision for Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable for forty-five billion dollars in 2014 has led to many criticizing the merger, calling it a monopoly. Others have called the whole cable system an oligopoly. For it to be a monopoly or an oligopoly, it would have to fit their respective categories. The merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable would not create a true monopoly, but would give it significant market power because it has monopoly resources and can be considered a natural monopoly. It will also further its power in a market dominated by oligopolies. People argue that it is not a danger to Americans for this merger to happen, but when one looks at the practices Comcast already uses, it paints
Before examining media practices, let’s establish what the major news networks are and who owns them. As most Americans know, ownership of media outlets is largely centralized around 6 main networks or mergers. Since 2000 the “Big Six” conglomerates (as they are often referred to) account for ninety percent of all media ownership including television, radio, newspapers, internet, books, magazines, videos, wire services and photo agencies. (Adams) In 2001, America Online (AOL) and Time Warner merged to become the world’s largest media organization. AOL Time Warner accounts for twelve television companies including Warner Brothers, 29 cable operations companies across the globe including CNN and Time Warner Cable, 24 book brands, 35 magazines including Time and Fortune, 52 record labels, the Turner Entertainment Corporation which owns four professional sports teams, and provides AOL internet services to 27 million subscribers in fourteen countries. In addition, the conglomerate owns multiple theme parks and Warner Brothers stores in thirty countries across the globe. AOL Time Warner is chaired by Steve Case, with Gerald Levin as CEO and boasts 79,000 employees worldwide. AOL Time Warner’s multi-faceted conglomerate brings in $31.8 billion in revenues annually. (New Internationalist)
"Internet History Sourcebooks." Internet History Sourcebooks. Fordham University, Aug. 2000. Web. 15 Feb. 2014. .
It allows opportunities to combine the performance of certain activities, thereby reducing costs and capturing economies of scope. This is done by acquiring IP that is underexploited or unused by the owner. They have opportunities to transfer their skills, technology, or intellectual capital from on business to another. This is yet again done through media networks, parks and resorts, and also their studio entertainment. All of which allow them to go globally. Along with the opportunity to transfer skills and technology, they can use their brand name across multiple product or service categories. This is seen in the multiple IP networks, studio entertainment, multiple resorts and parks that are all around the world, and lastly, in their consumer products that were ranked number one in 2011 for being the largest licensor of character-based merchandise in the world. Value chain match-ups seen in primary activities are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, the marketing/sales, and service. All lead to support activities such as technology, human resources, and general administration. Opportunities for skills transfer is seen in the media networks, parks and resorts,studio entertainment, and consumer products. Disney Company can share iconic Marvel characters in their parks/resorts, movies, and consumer products, due to buying the IP to Marvel and it does not stop at just Marvel ABC and ESPN are also involved.
10) Wulf, Steve. “Tote That Ball, Lift That Revenue.” Time Magazine. Oct. 21, 1996. Vol. 148, Issue 19, p. 94.
...ide whether it should be getting better at what it is already good at or whether it should be looking toward higher order capabilities that are beyond the old. The strategic vision of AT&T must be adjusted to reflect their intent of being ‘boundaryless’ and to become the leader in the infocom industry. It must become the companies culture.
An interesting historical paradox is that, although the Internet has U.S. Defense Department origins, it is scarcely perceived as a public utility by most users anymore. (Abrahamson, JMQC vol 75, no 1, p. 16) Public reaction to the specific and continuing privatization of the Internet has been anything but an organized protest. Greater portions of it have, in name as well as effect, become privatized by larger corporations. This includes Microsoft, the largest player in the nation’s information technology marketplace. This conglomerate is widely recognized as a commercial enterprise with well-documented monopolistic tendencies.
"USA Network." Cable World 21 Jan. 2002: 28. Business Insights: Essentials. Web. 6 May 2014.
We intend to exploit our leadership role by continuing to target and enter segments of the communications market that we believe will experience rapid growth or grow faster than the industry as a whole....
In Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray argues that we live in an age of electronic incubabula. Noting that it took fifty years after the invention of the printing press to establish the conventions of the printed book, she writes, "The garish videogames and tangled Web sites of the current digital environment are part of a similar period of technical evolution, part of a similar struggle for the conventions of coherent communication" (28). Although I disagree in various ways with her vision of where electronic narrative is going, it does seem likely that in twenty years, or fifty, certain things will be obvious about electronic narrative that those of us who are working in the field today simply do not see. Alongside the obvious drawbacks--forget marble and gilded monuments, it would be nice for a work to outlast the average Yugo--are some advantages, not the least of which is what Michael Joyce calls "the momentary advantage of our awkwardness": we have an opportunity to see our interactions with electronic media before they become as transparent as our interactions with print media have become. The particular interaction I want to look at today is the interaction of technology and imagination. If computer media do nothing else, they surely offer the imagination new opportunities; indeed, the past ten years of electronic writing has been an era of extraordinary technical innovation. Yet this is also, again, an age of incubabula, of awkwardness. My question today is, what can we say about this awkwardness, insofar as it pertains to the interaction of technology and the imagination?
I reason, the idea of their conglomerate is referable to a monopoly. Disney can actually control every aspect of the creation process to the marketing process of a product. For example, Disney’s most recent film Star Wars was a box office success and part of its success is due to the conglomerate that Disney’s. Everything from airing commercials to promoting products or services on its networks and websites is feasible, in regards to their structural network/conglomerate. The concept of media integration and cross promotion Disney has it down to
The music business entered a dramatic change in the 21st century. These changes appear in the way of how people access and consume music. According to Hull, Hutchison and Strasser (2011) the music business has developed throughout three stages. While moving from the agricultural age, where the music business made its revenues through live performances, troubadours and patronage, the industrial age introduced new innovations that were assumed to be associated with long-term economic growth. Commencing the year 1950 sound recordings experienced a drastic raise in sales by an average of 20% a year (Krasilovsky and Shemel, 2007). While the music industry was dominated by six major record lables (Time Warner, Disney, Vivendi Universal, Viacom, Bertelsmann, and News Corp.) (Hull, Hutchison and Strasser, 2011), further growth in the industry has been recorded in the 1970’s, where record sales “rose from less than $2 billion at the beginning of the decade to over $4 billion in 1978”, which took a sharp turn entering the Depression around the middle of the 20th century (Krasilovsky and Shemel, 2007:5).
The key changes taking place in the online industry in 1995 are the introduction of the Microsoft network and the coming of use of the Internet World Wide Web which offered alternative channels to content providers that provided more control over their offerings and potentially higher revenues. Microsoft Network took only a 30% commission fee (versus 80% taken by AOL from its content providers’ revenues) from its content providers and offered providers the option of choosing any format and font to display their content (versus the standard screen displays offered by AOL and its rivals). Also, the per-hour pricing policy offered by Microsoft was superior to AOL’s. With the development underway of a way to provide on-line currency collection, the World Wide Web offered huge incentives for providers to start publishing material on the internet by their own means without having to go through a middle-man such as an online provider. Both of these offerings do not bode well for AOL’s future prospects due to the huge incentives for customers and content providers to switch to these alternative distribution channels.