ABC, CNN on hold
By Steve McClellan -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/11/2002 6:30:00 AM
AOL Time Warner Inc. CEO Richard Parsons confirmed Tuesday that his company and The Walt Disney Co. have "hit the pause button" indefinitely on talks concerning a merger of Cable News Network and ABC News. He also said some AOL Time Warner "noncore" assets will soon be in play.
In theory, both sides like the concept of operating a merged ABC News/CNN entity, Parsons said, citing NBC News, where there is one big newsgathering apparatus feeding material to cable channels and a broadcast network.
But short of merging AOL Time Warner and Disney (which, he stressed, is not on the table), what the companies haven't figured out is how both units can control their own air and manage the overall entity at the same time.
Also, if a venture were to be crafted with one newsgathering operation servicing both the broadcast and cable channels, Parsons said, the question of how, or even if, it could be undone if it failed to live up to expectations remains open. Until those questions get answered, he added, there wouldn't be any point in resuming talks.
Parsons made his remarks at the UBS Warburg LLC media conference in New York.
He also said that as part of an effort to shore up the company's balance sheet, executives are now putting together a list of noncore assets that the company will consider selling. Parsons didn't identify specific properties, but he stressed that America Online Inc. wasn't one of them. Job one with AOL is to fix it, he said, adding, "Fixing it requires content creation, the company's strong suit."
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