Time Warner Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons followed up this morning’s news about changes at the top — the promotion of Jeff Bewkes, the retirement of Don Logan — with his year-end staff email. I was just about to post the full text on our server when I realized MSNBC and the FT had saved me the trouble. Instead, I’ll put some excerpts from the 2,000-word message in extended entry:
On Bewkes: “You all know about Jeff’s storied stewardship of HBO; and Warner Bros., New Line and our Turner networks have also turned in record-breaking performances on his watch. On the digital front, with his usual intelligence and energy, Jeff has provided critical leadership for a number of our cross-company initiatives – from video-on-demand and anti-piracy measures to the direct delivery of digital content to consumers. I have great confidence that Jeff will continue to be a most effective partner as we move Time Warner into the future.
On Google: “We were looking for an agreement that would enable us to: sell the full range of online advertising formats; build our Internet audience; capitalize on AOL’s access to Time Warner’s premier branded content; and preserve the Internet’s tremendous upside potential for Time Warner shareholders. Our strategic alliance with Google promises to fulfill all of these objectives – starting with making AOL an even more effective player in online advertising. . With this agreement, AOL’s sales force will now be able to sell all types of online advertising – including paid search – and we’ll explore expanding the partnership into selling television and print advertising.”
On digital: “With digital technologies blurring the lines among the media, entertainment and communications industries, we’re seeing overlaps or adjacencies among our businesses – and that’s opening up new opportunities.
Our plan is to use our businesses’ superior performances and ability to innovate and collaborate – all under one roof – to identify emerging trends that cross traditional industry lines and capitalize on them faster and better than anybody else.” Examples: Warner Bros. and AOL’s creation of In2TV; AOL and Time Warner Cable working together to switch AOL dial-up subs to Road Runner wherever possible.
On Carl Icahn and Steve Case: He actually never mentions them by name but addresses the desire “some people” have to break the company into three or four pieces. “Our board and senior management team think they are wrong. Our approach has been – and continues to be – to look at these questions with an open mind and to make judgments based on facts. The evidence simply doesn’t support the view that breaking up the company would generate meaningful new value. Indeed, we believe that a break-up would not be in the long-term best interest of our shareholders. It’s important to remember that, for a variety of reasons, stock prices have lagged in the media sector. Once investors value the sector more fairly, our company will be ideally positioned to benefit.”
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