Time Warner

Service sector shrinks for 4th straight month WASHINGTON: The nation's service sector shrank for the fourth straight month in January, a trade group said yesterday, but at a slower pace than in the previous month. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade association of purchasing executives, said its service sector index rose to 42.9 last month, from December's downwardly revised reading of 40.1. The January reading was above analysts' expectations of 39, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

NEW YORK -- Adelphia Communications Corp.'s plan to end more than four years of bankruptcy protection and distribute $15 billion in cash and stock to creditors was officially confirmed yesterday by a judge in New York. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Gerber signed a confirmation order ratifying the exit plan in one of the biggest bankruptcies in U.S. history. Gerber said Wednesday that he would confirm the plan, which is to take effect in 10 business days, barring an appeal. "The plan is hereby confirmed," his 53-page order said.

NEW YORK -- Blue-chip stocks gave back moderate gains in the final minutes of trading to end lower yesterday, but the Nasdaq composite inched higher to close at a record level for the third consecutive session.The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 9,345.70, down 13.13, breaking two days of gains. The Dow got as high as 9,430.66, up nearly 72 points from Friday's close, and was up more than 50 points near the close, only to give way to profit-taking in the final 20 minutes.And although the Nasdaq composite pushed to a record again, rising 4.20, to 2,510.

AT&T Corp.'s bid for MediaOne Group Inc. represents another step in Ma Bell's effort to buy cable television lines to use for local telephone and other communi-cations services. AT&T agreed in June to buy another large cable company, Tele-Communications Inc. AT&T has also entered a partnership with cable firm Time Warner Inc.AT&T's campaign stands to redefine not only the nation's largest long-distance company, but also the telephone and cable industries themselves. What does this mean for consumers?

ATLANTA -- After eight weeks of conference calls and facing a possible repeat of last year's fizzled negotiations, officials zTC representing Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis finally have reached an agreement in principle for a heavyweight title unification March 13 at Madison Square Garden in New York."

We went to see "Contact," the Jodie Foster movie, because we heard it would connect us with other worlds. It did, and one of the worlds turned out to be Cable News Network's. CNN's reporters kept making cameo appearances, playing themselves, in a casting attempt to link the outer space story to the real world on Earth. It worked. They linked us to the real world of Bugs Bunny. And of Emmett C. Burns Jr.Burns is the Baltimore County delegate who wants us to think carefully about $21 billion in the Maryland pension system, and how none of it should be invested in companies that make gangsta rap recordings.

NEW YORK -- The two worlds of Jonathan Levin came together yesterday as teen-agers from the South Bronx and titans of industry gathered for the funeral of the slain schoolteacher and son of Time Warner's chief executive.Grief proved a powerful uniting force as students and moguls alike expressed similar sentiments: admiration for the way Levin lived his life teaching poor youngsters at a public high school and disbelief at the grisly way he died. He was found shot to death -- his feet bound and chest stabbed -- in his Upper West Side apartment Monday night.

NEW YORK -- From their beginning in 1986, the Goodwill Games have been viewed in many quarters as nothing more than a discount knockoff of the Olympics as well as another of Ted Turner's forays into egocentrism.After all, no profoundly memorable moment, athletic or otherwise, has sprung from any of the three previous games, held in Moscow (1986), Seattle (1990) and St. Petersburg, Russia (1994).And as for Turner and his, shall we say, delusions of grandeur, all you need to know on that subject is that during a news conference here last week to start the one-year countdown to next year's games, the media mogul, on more than one occasion, gave himself and his creation credit for ending the Cold War.You'd have to hope that Turner was joking, for no event could live up to that kind of hype.

The U.S.'s largest entertainment companies are expected to have higher fourth-quarter cash flow, buoyed by box-office successes such as "First Wives Club" and gains in cable programming.Cash flow at Time Warner Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Viacom Inc. will rise by double digits in the quarter, analysts said. Cash flow, a measure of financial performance for debt-heavy companies, is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.One of the biggest gainers will be New York-based Viacom, whose cash flow is expected to rise 25 percent to $554 million from $444 million, benefiting from the success of "First Wives Club" and "Star Trek: First Contact," two analysts said.

Time-Life and Ritz in joint lab ventureTime-Life Photo Laboratories and Ritz Camera said this week that they are teaming up to offer professional photo-lab services at affordable prices."

Time Warner to spin off AOL, ending ill-fated deal WASHINGTON -: Media giant Time Warner announced Thursday what it had said it intended to do more than a year ago: Unload its struggling AOL advertising-and-dial-up unit, which will face life as a standalone, publicly traded company. The move officially ends the nine-year saga of Dulles, Va.-based AOL and New York's Time Warner, which began when AOL co-founder Steve Case engineered what was hailed at the time as the first of what would be several mega-marriages between old and new media.

Cab mileage rates to remain the same Taxicab mileage rates in Baltimore and Baltimore County will remain the same while state regulators research how the mileage rate should be adjusted to reflect changing costs of business. Rates will stay at the current $2.20 per mile and trips from downtown Baltimore or the cruise ship terminal to BWI Marshall Airport will still cost a flat rate of $30. Rates were set to decrease to $1.65 on March 1 as a result of a twice-yearly fuel price adjustment based on a 2005 settlement.

WASHINGTON - Time Warner Inc. announced Wednesday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it intends to spin off its ailing AOL division. "Although the Company's Board of Directors has not made any decision," the company wrote in its latest quarterly report to investors, "the Company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner's stockholders, in one or a series of transactions." Time Warner's net income dropped 14 percent over the same period a year ago, mainly because of dropping revenues at AOL but also because of a suffering publishing business.

Service sector shrinks for 4th straight month WASHINGTON: The nation's service sector shrank for the fourth straight month in January, a trade group said yesterday, but at a slower pace than in the previous month. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade association of purchasing executives, said its service sector index rose to 42.9 last month, from December's downwardly revised reading of 40.1. The January reading was above analysts' expectations of 39, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. said yesterday that board member Richard Parsons - the former CEO of Time Warner - will soon be taking over as chairman. The appointment is effective Feb. 23, Citigroup said in a statement. Parsons succeeds Win Bischoff, who became chairman in December 2007. Bischoff is not putting himself up for re-election at the board's annual meeting this spring and will retire later this year, Citigroup says. The embattled bank has suffered five consecutive quarters of losses and received $45 billion in government aid as it struggles to stay afloat amid the credit crisis.

NEW YORK - The stock market's seven-week rally skidded to a halt yesterday. Stocks endured their worst drubbing in a month, and crude oil plummeted the most in more than seven years, as a batch of gruesome unemployment and corporate-profit reports reminded investors about the dire state of the U.S. economy. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 245.40 points, or 2.7 percent, to 8,769.70. The Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 28.05 points, or 3 percent, to 906.65. The Nasdaq composite index gave up 53.32 points, or 3.2 percent, to 1,599.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Running out of time and options, Yahoo Inc. again rebuffed Microsoft Corp.'s buyout offer yesterday and continued to seek refuge in the arms of Time Warner Inc. Yahoo, which faces a takeover fight if it does not reach a deal with Microsoft by April 26, is trying to sell a substantial minority stake to Time Warner, according to people familiar with the talks. The deal being discussed would combine Yahoo with Time Warner's beleaguered AOL Internet unit. Time Warner's stake, if committed to support Yahoo's management against Microsoft, would make it harder for the software giant to win a threatened proxy fight.

New technology is not automatically making for more democracy - nor is it pushing old media elites into the background, as many analysts have predicted. While longtime giants of American media, such as Time Warner and NBC, are successfully adapting to the digital landscape, citizen journalists and bloggers are emulating old media "gatekeeper" ways by restricting access to other new voices once they get established online. Those are among the findings of the State of the News Media 2008 report issued today by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research organization based in Washington.

Exit, the diplomat. Enter, the operator. After months of speculation, Time Warner Inc. announced this week that Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief operating officer, will succeed Richard D. Parsons as chief executive at the end of the year. The announcement, though far from unexpected, could pave the way for major changes at the world's largest media company, which owns Warner Brothers, AOL, Time Inc. and CNN. Parsons has placed a premium on stability in a company that has been long on upheaval.

After hiring his newspaper's first black journalist to hold a management position, an editor insisted that the pioneering move was not such a big deal, as I recall. Real progress comes not when you are able to hire a black editor, he said, but when you also are able to fire her. The danger of getting fired is a sign that you're accountable. It is evidence that you have been hired for your ability to help the company achieve its mission, not for your value as a token. Of course, such double standards are not fair.