Marriage of convenience

The announcement of a merger between Time Warner and America Online last month was a copywriter's dream come true - a perfect source of dramatic descriptions. "The biggest merger in corporate history", shouted headlines. Time Warner is big ("an international media conglomerate"), AOL is big ("an Internet powerhouse"), the merger was considered "enormous". Two "giants" coming together for the ultimate 21st century "marriage" in a multi-billion dollar deal - a "cork-popping" event, even.

What are the social and political implications? One Italian newspaper says that, as knowledge increasingly becomes power, revolutions are "no longer the means to seize power" - and they'll be very passe.

America Online, an Internet service provider; Time Warner, an entertainment corporation - you'd think the merger of these two organisations would simply be a case of easy access to news, movies and buying things. In a way it is, but it's a merger which creates a huge partnership and points to substantial changes in how we will communicate in the future.

There is still, after all, a revolution out there, and it will be televised: it is digital, and according to Gerald Levin, chief executive officer of AOL Time Warner, it is a revolution which has "already begun to create unprecedented and instantaneous access to every form of media".

Time Warner is a typical, highly successful 20th century media organisation. It's home to two of the great US magazine titles of that era, Time and Life, book publishers, Warner Bros movie studio (which includes the great Looney Tunes cartoon stable) and CNN as well as several other media outlets; in the US it is one of the big providers of cable-TV services. It has dealt in news and entertainment in ways we are all familiar with - on the telly, in the cinema, through tangible things like paper. However, in this new century, information and entertainment will be less tangible, more virtual. America Online is the world's largest Internet provider, with a network of some 20 million subscribers - concentrated heavily in the US, but its Internet services reach web users globally.

Founded only a decade-and-a-half ago, when the Internet was starting to be a whisper among computer enthusiasts, it is only something like a quarter of the size of Time Warner. In fact, not so long go it was being heavily criticised for the poor quality of its service. Yet, as part of the deal AOL gets 55 per cent of the merged company. Time Warner has agreed to hand over control of what amounts to one of the world's biggest media empires. It is a decision which must reflect considerable confidence in the potential of the Internet - the new medium.

But it is a merger which has met with mixed reaction. The stock market is not sure - share prices for both companies have not been doing terribly well. This apparently reflects investor doubts about the integration of media content and Internet delivery.

So what has each company got to offer the other that will make the merger a significant new millennium success story?

In essence, you've seen this sort of romance in plenty of movies before: the story of an old-fashioned company with expertise in news and entertainment, which meets breath-of-fresh-air company with expertise in delivering information online. Imagine Harrison Ford meets Sandra Bullock.

As Gerald Levin of AOL Time Warner says, "We are putting traditional media and new media together. That is an enormous statement." The stuff of the 20th century meets the delivery service of the 21st century.

The marriage is not just one of a couple of big corporations giving rise to an even bigger one. It's the marriage of provision and content. And in the new era of information technology, it could be an essential one. Perhaps the two companies desperately need one another to survive.

Time Warner will have instant access to AOL's estimated 20 million online households. It will have a whole new source of promotion for its movies and publications. Meanwhile, the opportunities for e-commerce burst wide open, and by packaging its magazines and networks with the Internet service, Time Warner will be able to sell more advertising - by offering advertisers special rates that go across the various media.

AOL, for its part, will be able to attract more and more customers with the prospect of access to the wide range of media and entertainment brands on offer from Time Warner. Currently largely dependent on telephone connections, AOL will now be able to use Time Warner's faster cable systems. (Microsoft's smaller share in cable company NTL has some of the same objectives.)

This all sounds like good news for us, the consumer - lots more info and entertainment at the click of a mouse.

"The Internet, unlike anything that has existed before, is instantly world-wide," says Levin. "We have got hold of something that is not an American institution, it is a global phenomenon . . .

"AOL Time Warner will be truly a global company with a lot of relationships around the world."

It looks like other media companies worldwide will have to take up the challenge of new technologies urgently, or sink without a trace.

Robbie Williams? What does Robbie Williams have to do with it? It's quite simple really: media group EMI has arranged a merger with Warner Music to create Warner EMI Music, a real giant of a record company - the world's second largest music corporation. Robbie was an EMI recording artist; now he's part of the AOL Time Warner mega-corporation. Why might he be pleased? Why not?