TW suffers AOL drag
February 7, 2008
Time Warner, the world’s largest media company by sales, posted improved quarterly earnings and revenue but forecast slower growth in 2008. Revenue rose 2 per cent to $12.6 billion, and net income of $1.03 billion.
The last three months of 2007 were the first to be reported under Jeff Bewkes, who took over as CEO at the beginning of the year. Investors are looking to Bewkes for dramatic steps to revive Time Warner’s moribund stock, which fell 29 perc ent over the past 12 months.
Earnings from Time Warner Cable, the company’s publicly traded cable TV division, rose 19 per cent on a 12 per cent gain in revenues, as the company continued to digest the acquisition of cable systems from Adelphia Communications Corp.
But AOL had a 32 per cent decline in revenues, as the company shed another 740,000 dial-up access subscribers, bringing its total to 9.3 million. That is down 3.8 million from a year earlier.