In Depth

Jeff Bewkes, Chairman & CEO, Time Warner, on Why The AOL Merger NEVER Made Sense, and the Lessons We should Learn from the Fiasco (from the TVWeek Innovation360 Conference in NY City, Oct. 13, 2009)

Filed under: AOL, bad idea, CEO, chairman, Chuck Ross, Comcast, Jeff Bewkes, Jeffrey Bewkes, merger, NBC Universal, Time Warner, TVWeekNBCU

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Gene Slaymaker

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I am a shareholder of Time Warner and former employee of Time Life. I read your letter and one from the finance department with interest. But I am baffled about the residual stock your staff bought for me from the dividends on the stock I held before becoming an employee. Not much the brass has done has made sense to me..spinning off the trees and taking on AOL, shadow-boxing with Paramount before settling on the Warner deal..to name a few.
I enjoyed my time with WFBM-TV, AM-FM-Cable-Muzak, etc. in the 1960s --the Golden Years of broadcasting in Indiana. Now a letter arrives with your letter -- informing me that unless I send in the stock certificates I never received, I will lose all of the 43 shares I think you have been holding for me for a number of years. Frankly, sir, that sucks. Can't someoine in your organization take the time to look up whatever happened to Gene Slaymaker's stock. If he was sent a stock certificate, when? I think it also sucks when your agent --Computer krap -- tells me that if I have lost the stock (I never received) they will run it down for me for a fee of $70. It looks to me like I wouild lose three shares in order to reclaim my 43 -- held by you in escrow for a long time. I am too old and too inexperienced in toying with the stock market to screw around with this. But I am still alert enough to return to investigative reporting -- for which I earned many national and state awards -- and alert your present and future shareholders that there are machinations afoot that still make no sense.

Please assign some underling in the proper department to check this out.

Thank you and good luck.

Gene Slaymaker
5161 Washington Boulevard
Indianaapolis, IN 46205-1071
tel. (317) 255-5554
slaymakers@aol.com
We even subscribe to AOL and to Time.

If you can't locate me as a shareholder, look up the Time Life newsletters for the 19660s (1966, I think) and you will find that I won the best of show, Amateur, in the company's art competition. True, it was a bit primitive but anyone can recognize it as El Caracol, the observatory at Chichen Itza.

If this is received at Time Warner, please inform Mr. Bewkes of my concerns and best wishes for his success. Someone has got to get it right before print journalism vanishes entirely.

Thank you.

GS