• by February 27, 2001

Get a group of media buyers talking about reaching large online audiences and chances are AOL-Times Warner will come up at some point. And it should, according to the latest numbers from Jupiter Media Metrix. The researchers today reported that AOL-Time Warner accounted for nearly one third of all time spent online in January 2001 in the U.S.

Jupiter says that on its own, Time Warner's online properties reached 15.7% of users at home, but combined with AOL, the merged entity had an at-home penetration of 72.3%.

Moreover, while the total usage minutes for Time Warner's properties amounted to 0.3% of all time spent online in January 2001, AOL and Time Warner combined accounted for 32.7%.

"The Media Metrix audience ratings indicate that Time Warner has an unmatched opportunity to cut media marketing and promotional costs," says David Card, Jupiter Senior Analyst.

According to Card, "Time Warner can now tap into the most time-intensive audience online, providing an opportunity to present content, advertising and services to its customer base at an unprecedented rate."

In addition, Jupiter analysts say that one of the under- appreciated aspects of the merger is the benefit AOL receives from Time Warner's online presence at work. According to Media Metrix data, AOL on its own had a 67.2% reach, but that figure increased to 72.1% with the addition of Time Warner's online properties, which include CNN.com, CNNFN.com and CNNSI.com among others.