It feels like SBC/Cingular/DirecTV learned nothing from history by wanting to buy Time Warner.
What makes SBC think they are any stronger of a partner than AOL was?
This sort of thing would've never happened when real leaders like Sigman and Whitaker were in charge. 2 years from now, Stephenson will be looking in a mirror and seeing circa 2001 Steve Case staring right back at him.
Adelphia was split between Comcast and TimeWarner--and that purchase wasn't a mistake because it yielded key markets for both companies. Don't see anything in this thread about AOL being a great grab; where are you pulling that from?
Bewkes was also not in charge of the AOL/TimeWarner merger. Also, Fox offered to buy TimeWarner in 2014 for 80 billion, but Bewkes and TW rejected it.
I'd go on and on with more facts, but you don't seem like a "facts" guy, so we'll just agree to disagree.
Your critique of Bewkes is funny, though--especially since it's coming from an anonymous poster on a message board this is becoming more and more unreliable as the days go on. What are your achievements in life?
When you start your defense of this stupid idea by setting the example of how TW purchased aol and adelphia cable (wow, remember those clowns?) etc and later realized what a horrible mistake it was and it's CEO has spent the last few years figuring out how to polish this turd and sell it to the most eager su ckers that's when you know what the real BS is.
I keep reading all this praise about TW's head honcho but from the looks of it all he's doing is fixing what they broke and get rid of it as quick as possible. Is that really what passes as visionary and talent these days? Is that what Randall wants? Too break it so he can look good fixing it? What an innovator.
Absolute BS.
TimeWarner was a massive, ridiculous beast that didn't make a lick of sense in hindsight. Bewkes and his leadership have spent a lot of time spinning off groups like Time and the cable operation. The new Time Warner is all about content, and that is what AT&T is trying to buy. It's far more streamlined.
You can hate AT&T all you want--and many of you do (which begs the question: why are you still hanging around)--but their target is a quality one.
If anything they should have done this before DIRECTV, or maybe not have even done DIRECTV in the first place.
There actually aren't many differences AOL was the analogous internet delivery system/provider to TWs content. It's been said AOL should have created Netflix.
You don't have to be disgruntled to be well reasoned and balanced.
But whatever you need to sleep at night
There are so many differences between that deal and this one, but hey, please continue on with the doom and gloom comparisons since they're so popular with throng of disgruntled employees on this site.
This actually makes sense, this move is a good one and we have to make it.
How we will be executing, that is the question. It's easy to mess up.
Firms buy studios all the time, it's cool and glitzy - if your remember in 2000 a company called Vivendi bought Universal studios (they are a French water utility company) for the heck of it - execs like mingling with stars, LA and Hollywood is so alluring. Most companies who buy studios get burned and deals fall through cracks.
I am predicting that AT&T will fail here (just like everyone before)....