It is curious – in the current news about the fate of Time Warner – how the crucial contribution of the record music in the building of the empire has been forgotten. It was Warner Music, Reprise, Elektra, Atlantic, Asylum that generated the cash-flow to finance the movies and the cable business. More recently, Warner Music was the first of what turned out to be a series of divestures :
Time Warner’s chief executive, Jeffrey L. Bewkes, is in the position of seller and not buyer because selling is what he has mostly done since taking over in 2008. In an effort to raise the company’s stock price, Mr. Bewkes has spun off what he either could not or did not want to run. AOL, Time Warner Cable and most recently, Time Inc., have all been given the heave-ho, and the market has applauded every move — Time Warner’s stock has nearly doubled in the last two years.
via NYTimes.com.
