12 posts and columns on Dick Parsons

Former Time Warner Boss Dick Parsons Gets Back in the Media Business

in Media on September 16, 2009 at 5:25 am PT

There are very good odds that there are going to be some very big deals happening in the media world in the next year or so. So this move makes a lot of sense: Former Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons is joining up with Providence Equity Partners, the private equity firm with a hankering for media investments.
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The $125 Million-Sweet DailyCandy Revenge of Bob "Pitchman"

in News on August 6, 2008 at 6:55 am PT

Oh, there had to be much, much gnashing of teeth in the corporate offices at the Time Warner Center in New York yesterday with news of the sale of DailyCandy to Comcast for $125 million. Why? Maybe because that tasty payment is going right into the hands of Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group Ventures, which bought the fashion and shopping newsletter business for $3 million in 2003. This is certainly different from the situation almost exactly six years ago when Pittman–nicknamed “Pitchman” for his smooth business stylings–was driven out of then-AOL Time Warner on the proverbial rail. If you want a taste of those once-grim times for Pittman, here is an excerpt from my book, “There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future.”

BoomTown Plea to Jeff Bewkes: Free Jon Miller!

in News on August 1, 2008 at 4:41 pm PT

Yesterday, in what feels to BoomTown to be a deeply petty move, Time Warner said that it had blocked former AOL head Jon Miller from being considered as a possible Yahoo board member. The reason is a noncompete Miller signed, part of a severance agreement he reached with the media giant after it unceremoniously tossed him out in late 2006. A Time Warner spokesman said Miller was barred from working “for a variety of competitors, including Yahoo, until March of 2009.” Like it matters.

BoomTown Decodes Carl Icahn's Latest Letter to Yahoo (The Crazy Eddie Edition)

in News on June 4, 2008 at 4:19 pm PT

Break out the sedatives, because Carl Icahn is getting mighty tetchy with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the board of directors of the troubled Internet company! In yet another letter to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, the ever-grumpier billionaire investor, who is waging a proxy fight against Yahoo and seeking to oust Yang and crew, he stepped up the volume to Crazy Eddie levels. It’s almost too juicy to require translation, as the veins practically pop out in Icahn’s letter from all the agita he seems to be experiencing over this botched takeover.
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A History Lesson for Jerry Yang: It Sticks in My Craw(ford)

in News on May 6, 2008 at 2:34 am PT

Yesterday, the powerful portfolio manager at Yahoo’s largest investor, Gordon Crawford of Capital Research Global Investors, a division of Capital Research & Management Co., made some very public and very harsh remarks directed at Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang for blowing the Microsoft deal.

Bewkes Job No. 1: No More Stumble-Bumbling With AOL

in News on November 8, 2007 at 12:05 am PT

As expected, from a story we broke in BoomTown more than a week ago, AOL confirmed it has bought the Israeli content-targeting ad network Quigo. The sale price, said sources, was a lofty $300 million, around what Yahoo paid for data analytics ad network BlueLithium in September. Well, it’s probably a good thing for AOL [...]

The Fruit Basket? It's From Carl Icahn, Sir.

in News on July 17, 2007 at 12:35 pm PT

Lousy historical analogies aside, Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons’s ill-conceived comment in early May on the current media landscape (in which he compared Google to Custer) was in some ways an apt one. After all, one could say that Time Warner has long been an organization with “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” Too many working parts, too, according to some who’d like to see the company sell off a few.

The Fruit Basket? It’s From Carl Icahn, Sir.

in News on July 17, 2007 at 12:35 pm PT

Lousy historical analogies aside, Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons’s ill-conceived comment in early May on the current media landscape (in which he compared Google to Custer) was in some ways an apt one. After all, one could say that Time Warner has long been an organization with “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” Too many working parts, too, according to some who’d like to see the company sell off a few.

Well, That Was $71 Million Well Spent … Time to Sell Off Some More of That Google Stock

in News on June 8, 2007 at 4:28 pm PT

Are You There God? It's Me, AOL.

in News on June 8, 2007 at 5:37 am PT

Former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller did a lousy job of divining his future at the world’s largest Internet service provider, but he might not have been so bad at envisioning AOL’s. In October 2006, Miller intimated that Time Warner would consider divesting itself of the service provider. He was sacked a few weeks later. Apparently, [...]

Are You There God? It’s Me, AOL.

in News, June 8, 2007 at 5:37 am PT

Bury Your Heart at Wounded Knee, eh Dick?

in News, May 9, 2007 at 5:58 pm PT