• TechCrunch, Wednesday, May 27, 2009 1:15 PM

Sources tell TechCrunch that a final decision will be made about an AOL spinoff at Time Warner's board meeting on Thursday. Last month, the media giant said it was preparing to spin off the beleaguered Web company, followed by an IPO soon thereafter.

The sources said the decision was a "done deal", but Michael Arrington notes that question marks hang over the fate of AOL's dial-up business, which continues to decay. Today, AOL's dial-up business has 6.9 million subscribers; at its peak, AOL had 26.7 million subscribers. Even so, Arrington reckons that AOL's subscription business is still worth nearly $2 billion, and brings in approximately $1 billion in free cash-making it an important way for the company to finance growth. According to TC's sources, the dial-up business will remain part of the new AOL.

The company had total revenues of $4.2 billion in 2008, a 20% drop from 2007. For the first quarter of 2009, AOL had $867 million in revenue and $150 million in operating income.

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