• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, April 10, 2009

Calling it an "incredibly ill-conceived idea and a very repressive step backwards," a New York state representative is vowing to stop Time Warner's controversial plan to roll out a new pay-per-download billing system, adding, "At the very moment when access to digital information is at the heart of economic recovery, they're going to go for corporate greed."

Time Warner apparently says pay-per-download is fairer than more conventional broadband pricing, which charges consumers a flat fee for unlimited access. Hmmm, how so? No mention anywhere of charging LESS than the monthly flat fee for those millions of online users who just check email, the weather forecast and what time the movie starts downtown. I guess "fair" only works in one direction.

But what can you expect from Time Warner Cable? They are a foster child of troubled parents. There was a time in the not-so-distant past that working at Time Inc. was the pinnacle of careers in publishing sales, marketing, consumer marketer, photography, reporting and editing. It was the gold standard by which every other publisher was measured. Nice that you worked at Condé Nast or Meredith, but you weren't playing Augusta until you were a Time Incer. Then the shit hit the fan.

In spite of a far more attractive offer from Paramount in 1989, Time got in bed with parking lot mogul Steve Ross, who brought movies and music to the mix and Warner to the company name. A couple of years later, Ted Turner brought the cable TV and theme park business with him to Time Warner. Meanwhile, the Internet had blossomed and Time failed again and again to develop a sustainable strategy to become an online player. In a panic, the company in 2003 rushed headlong into what is often characterized as the worst business merger in history, a new company called AOL Time Warner, with former Pizza Hut developer Steve Case as chairman. With it came wave after wave of scandal and writeoffs as AOL's business practices were uncovered by the Feds. Meanwhile, Time Warner's stock price began a slow, steady descent from over $100 to under $10, wiping out billions in shareholder and employee stock value.

One might argue that it was AOL's slime bucket business practices that brought down the house that Luce built. A better argument is that there was a failure in leadership. Where to start? With new age medical mystic Gerald Levin and Richard Parsons, who took two whole weeks to decide to flush Time Warner down the AOL toilet? At least Levin and Case eventually got thrown under the bus. Parsons? He's off to rescue Citibank. Why anyone thinks he can do that, since he failed to repair the infinitely less complicated Time Warner, is a less-than-amusing mystery. Did I mention I am in the process of pulling all of my business out of Citibank and over to Webster Bank?

Meanwhile, the Time Warner board of directors has sat passively, allowing Jeffrey L. Bewkes to make one stupid decision after another: hiring a parade of ineffective bozos to run AOL and allowing nearly every other business unit to fall into decline (except for TV production and cable TV, which escaped by spinoff.) In February, following yet another $24.2 billion writedown, Time Warner announced a net loss of $16.03 billion for the fourth quarter.

There are people at Time Warner who still embody the standards set by the old Time Inc., but they are retiring or being pushed aside. All the Web site copy about integrity and fairness is just window dressing. If the package is right, most are thrilled to leave since the corporate culture has degenerated to the point that it is no longer a source of pride to say, "I work at Time Warner."