Time Warner Round-Up: Case React; AOL Impact; Talk, Talk, Talk

The obligatory follows to Steve Case’s non-mea culpa are starting to roll out. The NYT reports that “a person close” to said he is not interested in rejoining Time Warner’s board in alliance with Carl Icahn and his support of any Icahn proposal “remains to be seen.” Meanwhile, the “whither AOL” guessing game continues.

AOL Co-Founder Calls for Split of Time Warner: “His comments came after a week of increasingly vituperative and personal attacks between Mr. Icahn, who directly and indirectly controls 3 percent of the company’s shares, and Richard D. Parsons, Time Warner’s chief executive. The sniping has gone far beyond the norm in corporate takeover battles … Mr. Case’s broadside also highlights the mountain of ill feelings that still surround the merger of AOL and Time Warner at the height of the Internet bubble five years ago, and the financial and managerial debacle that ensued.”

AOL Choice Will Affect Ad Market on the Web: David Cohen, SVP, Universal McCann: “A relationship between MSN and AOL does make good sense for advertisers. It is a marriage of technology prowess and content.”

AOL: Time Warner Keeps Talking: And talking and talking … “A deal still appears likely, though. In a business where the top four players are roughly equal in size, combining two of them into an Internet powerhouse could yield huge strategic and financial benefits — and establish the dominant player in the medium of the future.”

– Andy Serwer, Fortune/CNN: Another TW employee chimes in. (Last item.) “Whoa! Stop right there. Hey Steve let’s just say there are other ways of interpreting those problems! … The real issue for TWX (Research): figuring out how to distribute copyrighted material in a digital world. I say the stock doesn’t really move until they figure out that riddle.”

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