Song of The Day: My Own Worst Enemy - Artist: Lit

While on vacation about two weeks ago, I was relaxing in a hotel near Disney World burned out on character lunches and Ariel’s Grotto. After a while I turned on the TV and caught an interview with Dick Parsons, Time Warner’s Chairman and CEO, on Conversations with Michael Eisner, a talkshow with the former Chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company.

After Eisner describes Parsons as “the calming element of Time Warner” and after briefly discussing the ABC outage in ‘00, which I vividly recall because folks back then thought it could disrupt the mega-merger, Eisner said something that I didn’t quite expect: “I do believe that AOL will be in the end of the day a giant asset for Time Warner. Maybe you paid a little bit too much for it in those days….”

Parsons in response seemed a little more reserved by saying, “Do the assets ultimately work together and create value down the road? And that’s the story that’s still being written.” Although I would have liked to have heard, “Yes, you’re right…they are awesome and we love them,” Parsons remarks are probably prudent and practical until things really get moving on the revenue and growth.

Overall, I thought the interview had an encouraging tone: a respected pundit declaring AOL as a giant asset. As with anything, proper execution will ultimately ensure that the story being written is the one that realizes that giant asset. Here is the link to the transcript and video.

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