Time Warner sold me out!

Time Warner is the anti-christ. Well pretty close anyway. Several months ago when I was still on the west coast we had an account with them. Our cable bill was supposed to be $150/month. However, after ordering a fight that was priced around $50, our next bill jumped to $400. Then $900 supposedly for an equipment charge. I was fuming. When tax time came around though, I got them paid off.

Fast forward to the present. I moved into my new house only to find out that the anti-christ was my only option for internet service. Yikes! So I reluctantly called them (after exhausting my other options). I was informed by several companies that I had to get all of my services through them Cable, Internet, Digital phone. (I thought monopolies were illegal)....

Anyway, it took me a couple of days to round of a telephone to plug into the wall mostly because I have been working like crazy and just never had time to look. Within 5 minutes of plugging my phone into the wall, I was bombarded with telemarketer calls!

I didn't even know my own number, had just moved into a house that they knew the address for, and trying to sleep.

The first call I fielded came from the SC Troopers Fund. To which I let them know, the police did not show up when I needed them the most, so they couldn't count on me.

Next call came from a sweepstakes company. I just won a spectacular prize for a sweepstake I never entered!

It continued like this randomly for TWO DAYS before I finally had enough and called Time Warner. When I told them I wanted to disconnect and they questioned me, I let the girl have it. I told her it was total BS that they would sell their customer's info. Her reply was that they don't sell their customers info that these people probably got my # from information. I called Information they don't even have my number. Time Warner needs to be more responsible with what they do with customers info. If you have their telephone service your number has already been sold!

CANCEL THEM! THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU!!

(Unless you're really lonely and like having someone to talk to at 3am...)

Facts about Time Warner:

(The info below was taken from Wikipedia.org)

Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) is the world's largest media and entertainment conglomerate, headquartered in New York City. Formerly three separate companies: Warner Communications, Inc. and Time Inc. before the Time-Warner merger in 1990 and America Online, Inc. before its purchase of Time Warner in 2001 has created the current Time Warner , with major operations in film, television, publishing, Internet service and telecommunications. Among its subsidiaries are AOL, New Line Cinema, Time Inc., Time Warner Cable, HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, UBU Productions, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Cartoon Network, CNN, and DC Comics.
Contents

1970s

Warner Communications was established in 1972 when Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets, due to a financial scandal over its parking operations.

It was the parent company for Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Music Group during the 1970s and 1980s. It also owned DC Comics and Mad, as well as a majority stake in Garden State National Bank (an investment it was ultimately required to sell pursuant to requirements under the Bank Holding Company Act). Warner's initial divestiture efforts led by Garden State CEO Charles A. Agemian were blocked by Garden State board member William A. Conway in 1978; a revised transaction was later completed in 1980.

Warner made considerable profits (and later losses) with Atari, which it owned from 1976 to 1984. In 1976, Nolan Bushnell sold his Atari company to Warner Communications for an estimated $28–32 million. While part of Warner, Atari achieved its greatest success, selling millions of Atari 2600s and computers. At its peak, Atari accounted for a third of Warner's annual income and was the fastest-growing company in the history of the United States at the time.

In 1975, Warner expanded under the guidance of CEO Steve Ross and formed a joint venture with American Express, named Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, which held cable channels including MTV (launched 1981), Nickelodeon (launched 1979) and The Movie Channel. Warner bought out American Express's half in 1984, and sold the venture a year later to Viacom, which renamed it MTV Networks.

[edit] 1980s

In 1980, Warner purchased The Franklin Mint for about $225 million. The combination was short lived: Warner sold The Franklin Mint in 1985 to American Protection Industries Inc. (API) for $167.5 million. However, Warner retained Franklin Mint’s Eastern Mountain Sports as well as The Franklin Mint Center, which it leased back to API.[3]

In February 1983, Warner expanded their interests to baseball. Under the direction of Ceasar P. Kimmel, executive vice president, bought 48 percent of the Pittsburgh Pirates for $10 million. The company then put up its share for sale in November 1984 following losses of $6 million. The team's elderly majority owner, John W. Galbreath, soon followed suit after learning of Warner's actions. [4]
Turner Broadcasting logo
Turner Broadcasting logo

In 1984, due to the video game crash of 1983, Warner sold the consumer division of Atari to Jack Tramiel. It kept the arcade division and renamed it Atari Games. They sold Atari Games to Namco in 1985, and repurchased it in 1994, renaming it Time-Warner Interactive, until it was sold to Midway Games in 1996. Meanwhile, in 1987, it was announced that Warner Communications and Time Inc. were to merge. The last thing Warner did before the merger closed in 1989 was to buy out Lorimar-Telepictures.

[edit] 1990s

In early 1990, the combined companies were named Time Warner. This company subsequently acquired Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System in October 1996.

Time Warner had also been owner of the Six Flags Theme Parks chain during the 1990s after near bankruptcy. It sold all Six Flags parks and properties to Oklahoma based Premier Parks on April 1, 1998.

[edit] 2000s

In 2000, a new company called AOL Time Warner, with Steve Case as chairman, was created when AOL purchased Time Warner for US$164bn.[5] The deal, announced on 10 January 2000[6] and officially filed on 11 February 2000,[7] employed a merger structure in which each original company merged into a newly created entity. The Federal Trade Commission cleared the deal on December 14, 2000,[8] and gave final approval on January 11, 2001;[citation needed] the company completed the merger later that day.[9] The deal was approved on the same day by the Federal Communications Commission,[7] and had already been cleared the European Commission on 11 October 2000.[10] The shareholders of AOL owned 55% of the new company while Time Warner shareholders owned only 45%,[6] meaning that the smaller AOL had in fact bought out the far larger Time Warner.

After the merger, the profitability of the ISP division (America Online) decreased.[citation needed] Meanwhile, the market valuation of similar independent internet companies drastically fell. As a result, the value of the America Online division dropped significantly. This forced a goodwill write-off, causing AOL Time Warner to report a loss of $99 billion in 2002 — at the time, the largest loss ever reported by a company.

In 2003 the company dropped the "AOL" from its name, and removed Steve Case as executive chairman in favor of Richard Parsons, with AOL remaining a part of the company. That same year, Time Warner spun off Time-Life's ownership under the legal name Direct Holdings Americas, Inc. Case resigned from the Time Warner board on October 31, 2005.[11]

In 2005, Time Warner was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.[12] [13] [14]

On December 27, 2007 newly installed Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes discussed possible plans to spin-off Time Warner Cable and sell-off AOL and Time Inc. This would leave a smaller company made up of Turner Broadcasting, Warner Bros and HBO.[15]

On February 28, 2008 co-chairmen and co-CEOs of New Line Cinema Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne announced their resignations from the 40-year-old movie studio in response to Jeffrey Bewkes's demand for cost-cutting measures at the studio, which he intended to dissolve into Warner Bros.

[edit] Transactions made since the AOL-Time Warner merger

Since the merger, a number of transactions have taken place:

* The professional wrestling company WCW was sold to competitor and investing creditor WWE for $7 million.
* The Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers, and operating rights to Philips Arena were sold in mid-2003.
* The fifty percent share in the cable channel Comedy Central was sold to Viacom.
* Warner Music Group was sold to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. in March 2004.
* AOL/Netscape's longrunning litigation against Microsoft was settled out of court.
* Time Warner announced that it was shutting down its CNNfn financial information channel and disposing of its share in Google (2004).
* On March 31, 2006 Time Warner sold the Time Warner Book Group to French publisher Hachette Livre, of the Lagardere group.
* On February 7, 2006, a group led by corporate raider Carl Icahn and Lazard Frères CEO Bruce Wasserstein unveiled a 343-page proposal calling for the breakup of Time Warner into four companies and stock buybacks totaling approximately $20 billion. On February 17, 2006, the Icahn-lead group agreed with Time Warner to not contest the re-election of TW's slate of board members at the 2006 shareholders meeting. In exchange for the Icahn group's cooperation, Time Warner will buy back up to $20 billion of stock, nominate more independent members to the board of directors, cut $1 billion of costs by 2007, and continue discussions with the Icahn group over their proposal, particularly on the future of Time Warner Cable.
* On February 23, 2006, Time Warner announced that Turner South, a regional sports and entertainment network in the south, will be sold to News Corp's Fox Cable Networks group.
* On September 12, 2006, Time Inc. announced that Time4 Media, a group of men's interest magazines including Popular Science and Outdoor Life was to be put up for sale. The sale will include 18 publications (including three parenting-related titles).
* In the fall of 2006, the Atlanta Braves were sold to Liberty Media in a deal that returned vast amounts of Liberty-owned Time Warner stock back into the company's folds.

[edit] The CW Television Network

See also: The CW Television Network

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner announced that they were to create a new broadcast network, The CW Television Network. The network officially debuted on September 18, 2006. The network formally debuted on September 20 with the 2 hour premiere of America's Next Top Model.

The network is the result of a merger of The WB Television Network (a Time Warner holding) and UPN (a CBS Corporation holding). CBS Corporation and Time Warner each own 50% of the network. Tribune Broadcasting (previously owned a 25% stake on The WB) and CBS Corporation contributed its stations as new network affiliates.

[edit] Time Inc.

The Time Inc. division publishes approximately 150 titles worldwide. It is the leading magazine publisher in the U.S. and UK, and is understood to be profitable at US$5 billion in annual revenues.[16] As of January 2007, the unit is experiencing downsizing.[17] In January 2007, the Bonnier Magazine Group agreed to acquire 18 magazines that Time Inc. was divesting. The magazines in the package employed 550 people and included Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Ski, Yachting, and TransWorld Snowboarding, as well as 11 other titles that were part of Time Inc.'s Time4Media Group. Also included were Parenting, and Baby Talk, which were part of the Parenting Group.[18]

[edit] Financials

In 2004, Time Warner's market capitalization was $84 billion. When the AOL-Time Warner merger was announced in January 2000, the combined market capitalization was $280 billion.

For fiscal year 2002 the company reported a $99 billion loss on its income statement [19] because of $100 billion in non-recurring charges, almost all from a writedown of the goodwill (intangible asset) 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.

[edit] Commercial properties

Time Warner Inc. owns several large properties in New York City; certain buildings in the Rockefeller Center complex and adjacent office towers house its main offices; one of which houses a CNN news studio. In late 2003, Time Warner finished construction of a new twin-tower complex, designed to serve as additional office space, facing Columbus Circle on the southwestern edge of Central Park. Originally called the AOL Time Warner Center, the 755-foot, 55-floor mixed-use property was renamed Time Warner Center when the company itself was renamed.