AOL TiMe WarNeR..x

Time Warner Inc. is a leading global media and entertainment company with businesses in filmed entertainment, interactive services, television networks, cable systems and publishing.

Background & History...

AOL Time Warner was originally an independent company before its merge with AOL. This merger around January 2000 united the biggest name in the world of traditional media with the biggest in new media.

The company owns CNN, HBO, the Cartoon Network; magazines like Time, People, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated; and the Warner Brothers movie, television, and music studios. Time Warner employees 70,000 people, and before today was valued at about $100 billion. Time Warner itself is the product of several mergers, including bringing together Time, Inc. with Warner Brothers, and most recently folding Turner Broadcasting System.

AOL, or America Online, based in Virginia, is the nation's largest online company, providing more than 20 million subscribers with access to the Internet. About 12,000 people work for AOL, and prior to the announcement, it was valued at $163 billion. America Online has also previously merged with other companies, including Netscape and CompuServe. AOL will own 55 percent of the new company; Time Warner will own 45%. He said the new company starts out with a large customer base.

Ownership & Main People...

The Senior Executives which are responsible for the company are:

Richard D. Parsons, Chairman/CEO
Wayne Pace, CFO
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, President/COO

The following link shows us the vast range of media productions this institution owns...

http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/timewarner.asp

Finances, Business Ventures & Incomes...

In 2004, Time Warner's market capitalization was $84 billion (2004). When the AOL-Time Warner merger was announced in January 2000, the combined market capitalization was $280 billion. For economic year 2002 the company reported a $99 billion loss on its income statement because of $100 billion in non-recurring charges, almost all from the merger in 2000. (The value of the AOL portion of the company had dropped sharply with the collapse of the Internet boom, in the early 2000s.)

Media Productions...

As this company produces such a wide range of media, the following are some examples of it's enterprises:

• Cable News Network (CNN), a world wide news company as well as a cable news channel
• Home Box Office (HBO), Cinemax, Turner Classic Movies, cable movie channels
• TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television (TNT), Cartoon Network, cable channels
• The CW Television Network (co-owned with CBS Corporation)
• AOL and via its Web Properties Group:
• Advertising.com.
• CompuServe (Classic, 2000 and Basic), an Internet service provider
• Mirabilis, makers of the ICQ instant messaging program
• MapQuest, a WWW map and direction site
• Netscape, a web portal and browser vendor, owner of the Open Directory Project and formerly leader of the Mozilla project
• Nullsoft, a software development group best known for Winamp.
• Singingfish, an audio and video search engine used in Windows Media Player & Winamp.
• Weblogs, Inc., A network of weblogs including Engadget, TVSquad, Cinematical, AutoBlog and Joystiq.
• Time Warner Cable, a cable television company
• TIME, a weekly news magazine
• People, a weekly celebrity magazine
• Sports Illustrated, a sports magazine
• MAD magazine, a humor magazine
• Fortune, Money Magazine, business and investing magazines
• Warner Bros., a movie studio
• New Line Cinema, a movie studio
• Castle Rock Entertainment, a production company
• Atlanta Braves, a Major League Baseball team
• DC Comics, a comic book company
• Turner Entertainment, production company largely responsible for the distribution of the classic MGM, RKO, and Warner Bros. film libraries
• Turner Broadcasting System, responsible for managing several cable networks including CNN and Cartoon Network, as well as Turner Entertainment
• SportsNet New York, a regional sports network in New York City, jointly owned with Comcast and The New York Mets.

"Big Brother cleared of neglect..."

This article on the Media Guradian website is about the prestigious media regulator , 'Ofcom' and its decision regarding the many complaints it recieved against 'Big Brother' over it's seventh series broadcasted on Channel 4 this summer.

Even though the media regulator received complaints from 272 viewers over the course of the series Ofcom decided to clear Channel 4 over complaints that Big Brother contestants' welfare was neglected and that the broadcaster had condoned inappropriate behaviour. Instead, they decided that Big Brother did stay within acceptable programming boundaries.
Complainants felt that some contestants such as Shahbaz Chaudhry or Pete Bennett, who suffers from Tourette's syndrome, should not have participated in the programme as the inclusion of these contenders suggested viewers were being invited to "laugh at others less fortunate than ourselves" and were concerned that Channel 4 was neglecting its duty of care towards contestants.
Ofcom however argued that it was not its responsibility to override "informed decisions" made by adults to participate in reality TV shows and that in the case of someone like Bennett "There is rightly no reason why someone with a disability cannot and should not exercise the same degree of informed choice as any other adult - including choosing to enter the Big Brother house."

My Comments...

Every year many people complain about Big Brother and it's content, therefore I feel that perhaps Ofcom should have paid more attention than they did to the complaints that they recieved. However, when such a popular show is being criticised by a mere few hundred peaople in comparison to the thousands that watch it seems like the easier option to ignore the complaints as the show is generally such a success.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/bigbrother/story/0,,1875232,00.html