Time Warner Inc. is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc. and Time Inc., (along with the assets of a third company, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.) form the current Time Warner, with major operations in film,television and publishing. Among its subsidiaries are New Line Cinema, Time Inc., HBO, Turner Broadcasting System, The CW Television Network, TheWB.com, Warner Bros., Kids' WB,Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim, CNN, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Castle Rock Entertainment. The company used to also have telecommunications assets through Time Warner Cable and AOL, but in 2009, they were spun off from Time Warner into independent companies.
As of mid-2010, it was the world's second largest entertainment conglomerate in terms of revenue (behind Disney), as well as the world's largest media conglomerate.
In 1972, Kinney National Company spun off its non-entertainment assets due to a financial scandal over its parking operations and renamed itself Warner Communications Inc.
It was the parent company for Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Music Group during the 1970s and 1980s. It also owned DC Comics and Mad, as well as a majority stake in Garden State National Bank (an investment it was ultimately required to sell pursuant to requirements under the Bank Holding Company Act). Warner's initial divestiture efforts led by Garden State CEO Charles A. Agemian were blocked by Garden State board member William A. Conway in 1978; a revised transaction was later completed in 1980.
In 1976, Nolan Bushnell sold his Atari company to Warner Communications for an estimated $2–12 million. Warner made considerable profits (and later losses) with Atari, which it owned from 1976 to 1984. While part of Warner, Atari achieved its greatest success, selling millions of Atari 2600s and computers. At its peak, Atari accounted for a third of Warner's annual income and was the fastest-growing company in the history of the United States at the time.
In 1975, Warner expanded under the guidance of CEO Steve Ross and formed a joint venture with American Express, named Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, which held cable channels including MTV (launched 1981), Nickelodeon (launched 1979) and The Movie Channel. Warner bought out American Express's half in 1984, and sold the venture a year later to Viacom, which renamed it MTV Networks.
When the AOL-Time Warner merger was announced in January 2000, the combined market capitalization was $350 billion. It has subsequently fallen dramatically. Even by the time the merger was approved by the FCC and FTC just one year later on February 11, 2001, the company's market capitalization had plunged to $208.6 billion. By 2009, the company's value had tumbled even further, to just $65.7 billion, or roughly one-sixth of its value at the height of the dot.com bubble era when the deal was announced.Time Warner 2009 Annual Report
For fiscal year 2002 the company reported a $99 billion loss on its income statement because of $100 billion in non-recurring charges, almost all from a writedown of the goodwill (intangible asset) from the merger in 2000. This loss is one of the largest in corporate history. The value of the AOL portion of the company had dropped sharply with the collapse of the Internet boom, in the early 21st century.
On February 4, 2009, Time Warner posted a $16.03 billion loss for the final quarter of 2008, compared with a $1.03 billion profit for the same three months of 2007.
Net income 2.886 billion (2011)