Target M&A Report Analysis: Dotcom Survivor Retains Print

It’s a long way from the year 2000 when AOL famously bought Time Warner, then the largest media and entertainment company in the world, and also the publisher of many printed titles.

Now often referred to as the worst merger of all time, the AOL Time Warner deal led to a loss a year later of over $99 billion and decline in market value of more than $200 billion. The bubble had burst, and the merged company soon thereafter dropped “AOL” from its name.

And what happened to Time Warner? The synergy between print, broadcast and electronic delivery never really materialized, at least not for the combined AOL Time Warner. In 2009, the company spun off its cable division and dumped AOL. The remaining company focused on its print and traditional media businesses. Printed publications continued to face the headwinds of content distributed via the Internet and mobile, and in 2014 Time Warner spun off its printed publications as a separate company, Time Inc.