Way back in January 2000, AOL and Time Warner announced plans to merge. Actually, AOL bought Time Warner in a stock swap and debt acquisition worth $182 billion. At the time, this created the largest digital media entity anywhere. Oh how the mighty do fall as this relationship has dissolved and AOL is but a shell of it’s great self.
In November, AOL announced it was cutting 100 jobs initially with up to a total of 1,000 jobs eliminated by the time restructuring was complete. It appears that estimate was even short, as AOL has now said they will cut one-third of its staff, pending approval of a new restructuring plan and the completion of its separation from Time Warner. If approved, approximately 2,500 jobs will be eliminated from AOL’s 6,900 employees. In terms of square feet with empty seats, this is in the neighborhood of 600,000+/- SF. The next likely step is an announcement on lease cancellations.
On a side note: I wonder, if in 10 years, the Comcast-NBC Universal deal will suffer the same fate. It’s already been tagged as creating “a media behemoth”. Of course, that’s provided the deal goes through.
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