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Is Time Warner trying to 86 the AOL merger?

It seems preposterous that Time Warner executives would want to call off their impending nuptials to America Online. Yet with a little imagination, it's not hard to see some recent high-profile company blunders as internal attempts to sabotage the deal.

The theory is floated this week by Advertising Age columnist Randall Rothenberg: "It doesn't take a genius to see that what looked in early January like an interesting deal for Time Warner shareholders today, in May, appears to be tarnished hornswaggle." Rothenberg argues that the market is telling Time Warner what it thinks of its partner-to-be. AOL's stock, after all, is plummeting, while Time Warner's stock, the one that's supposed to go away after the merger, has soared in value.

So maybe Time Warner Cable's recent foolhardy attempt to block Disney from its cable systems wasn't so foolhardy, Rothenberg reasons, if the result is that the Feds block the AOL deal.

And there was still more fishy behavior observed this week. The New York Times reported Wednesday that employees of Time Warner Cable in Houston were asked in a company flyer to call Southwestern Bell and order high-speed DSL Internet service. This way, Time Warner (which already has its high-speed Road Runner service deployed in Houston) could learn where the Baby Bell was and wasn't a competitive threat. Naturally, the flyer instructed employees to cancel the service immediately after ordering it. Southwestern Bell has complained to the government. (Click here to read the Times story if you're a registered user.)

In a way, the Houston caper is even more pernicious than the ABC cable cutoff because (a) Southwestern Bell was the unsuspecting prey instead of a knowing combatant like ABC, and (b) this involves the Internet, which is AOL's bailiwick and the key concern of those who wanted the AOL-Time Warner merger blocked. As the watchdogs at FAIR remind us, AOL has been known to play fast and loose with the public trust in pursuit of competitive advantage, too. Specifically, it had to cancel a planned sale of its subscriber lists to telemarketers in 1997 after angry customers pointed out that AOL had promised to protect their privacy.

All of which leads Rothenberg to wonder if Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin is having seller's remorse, as evidenced by these recent goofups by its cable division: "A sane CEO doesn't do stuff like that, except for a purpose. And there can only be one reason, really: to stop the deal."

SBC sues Time Warner over Houston problem

Copyright this

by John Zipperer

One might think that a country as hyper market-oriented as the United States would have sounder trademark and copyright laws than it does. But then, one might think the same thing about patent laws, but Amazon.com's successful attempts to patent business practices have disillusioned more than a few. The fact is, people who enjoy "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles" so much that they write stories based on the characters or paint/draw/sculpt scenes from the series--and then want to share those creations with other fans--are at the mercy of studios jealous to protect their copyrighted material. And if one critic is right, it's more than just a little fan idealism that's getting tramped on.

In an intriguing online article, Henry Jenkins, director of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, charges that our culture is being stolen from us by the attempts by media corporations to fully control their creations. With every move by studios to shut down "Buffy" or other SF TV fan Web sites, the creative fans are denied an opportunity to participate in the popular culture. "These fans are also shock troops in a struggle that will define the digital age," writes Jenkins. These efforts to make people act like well-behaved consumers makes enjoying a science fiction tale about as joyful as a visit to your Grandma who's been collecting glass figurines for a few too-many years; there are many things you can look at but not touch. Behave.

(continued)

Pick to click

In "The Wednesday Woman" (9 p.m. Wednesday, CBS), Meredith Baxter plays a first-time novelist whose personal life begins to resemble that of the protagonist in her book. John Heard co-stars as her husband and Peter Coyote as the mystery man who comes into Baxter's life when she's assigned to write a story about him for a magazine.

Coyote and Baxter play recovering alcoholics, and as they converse about addiction and abuse, Coyote uses the language of coping to seduce her. (A pivotal scene, in fact, happens at a 12-step meeting.) As the noose tightens around them, however, the therapy-speak turns vicious and manipulative.

The dialogue is the best thing about ``The Wednesday Woman.'' It's smart and rings emotionally true. But the movie gets untracked as it tries to make the novelist's life conform to the last minute detail of her novel. The result is an unacceptable finale that's degrading to Baxter.

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    On this date...

    in 1993, "Designing Women" closes up shop, with its leading ladies (Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, Jan Hooks, Judith Ivey and Alice Ghostley) fantasize they're Scarlett O'Hara. Episode title: "Gone with the Whim." -- Tom Heald

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