• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 10, 2005

It's a TV news story that'll raise the blood of every hardworking media business journalist in the business -- a good, old-fashioned corporate raider making an uninvited bid for a major media company.

We are speaking of the noted Carl Icahn and the always fun-to-bash Time Warner. No, Icahn isn't formallly offering a fight yet - just talking to major shareholders and big hedge funds to see if they are as unhappy with Time Warner's stock performance as most of America who invested in the company.

After the massive merger deal with America Online in 1999, which raised the altitude of the company's stock price up to nearly $100 on the hope and promise of the Internet, the stock plummeted back to Earth at the low-flying seagull height of $18 a share.

Of course, it's a bit of a shame. Richard Parsons, chief executive of Time Warner has been doing all he can as a good chief executive -- taking responsibility, settling with shareholders, complying with the SEC. More of the blame goes to those swaggering, misguided AOL executives. Remember those executives and their faux advertising sales deals? That kind of stuff sticks in a shareholder's craw.

Icahn's efforts may have been slightly more welcomed some years ago. His possible attack might not succeed, but the first thing to spin-off would be the cable assets and possibly other divisions. Parsons is headed down the right track. But perhaps he's not moving as fast as Icahn, or others would want.

Over the last several years, Time Warner has always been just under the pristine heading of the best media conglomerates. With limited TV assets and just a small broadcast network, it has never been enough for Time Warner to jump onto the same playing field as Viacom, General Electric, Walt Disney Co., or News Corp., as all have bigger broadcast and cable TV assets.

Years ago analysts anticipated Time Warner should go after NBC. But that was misguided, as NBC always thought of itself as the acquiring company - and did just that when it bought Universal Studios.

At the outset the belief was that AOL - and the Internet - would be the revenue generators for the future of the company. It's not that the Internet was a wrong move for Time Warner; they just picked the wrong partner. Imagine what the stock would be today had that company been Yahoo! or Google.