Nearly six years ago, we hailed Jeff Bewkes, now the CEO of Time Warner, for honestly saying the claimed benefits of "synergy" -- using Big Media's chokehold over distribution to consolidate its grip over creative production -- were B.S. and would turn even greater control over creative decisions to "the suits," thus ruining "the business." Said Bewkes then, "“Horizontal integration can be useful if you don't let it ‘factory-ize’ creative production. … But where people got fouled up was in vertical integration. Saying you need to buy something to provide content for your network is bullshit -- you can get product from anywhere.”
Bewkes had it right back then. Yet as he eventually ascended to the top job at Time Warner, replacing Dick Parsons, he did relatively nothing about it. Time Warner kept its magazines, cable operations and catastrophic AOL Internet distribution, all the time hunting for that elusive magical "synergy" that would make the sum of the parts greater than the whole, when reality and the plummeting stock price proved it was less. According to the NY Times, that's about to change. In an effort to focus more sharply on “content creation” (or what nonsuits still like to call movies and television shows), Jeffrey L. Bewkes, who became chief executive of Time Warner in January, is whittling down the company’s many branches. It’s a makeover that will unravel about two decades’ worth of mergers that created the company in its current form. We'll see, as this is the third or fourth one of these articles we've seen over the years previewing the breakup of the company and the return to its roots as a content creator. Holy Cash Cow, Batman! Content Is Back at Time Warner - NYTimes.com.
Bewkes had it right back then. Yet as he eventually ascended to the top job at Time Warner, replacing Dick Parsons, he did relatively nothing about it. Time Warner kept its magazines, cable operations and catastrophic AOL Internet distribution, all the time hunting for that elusive magical "synergy" that would make the sum of the parts greater than the whole, when reality and the plummeting stock price proved it was less. According to the NY Times, that's about to change. In an effort to focus more sharply on “content creation” (or what nonsuits still like to call movies and television shows), Jeffrey L. Bewkes, who became chief executive of Time Warner in January, is whittling down the company’s many branches. It’s a makeover that will unravel about two decades’ worth of mergers that created the company in its current form. We'll see, as this is the third or fourth one of these articles we've seen over the years previewing the breakup of the company and the return to its roots as a content creator. Holy Cash Cow, Batman! Content Is Back at Time Warner - NYTimes.com.
Stumble It!
Comments