This one comes from a friendly camp, so you know how to take it: “A tip of the hat to those guys,” said Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons at Mipcom in reaction to the Google-YouTube deal, but he quickly added that whether it will be a “value-adding property” remains to be seen. If anyone was to go after the Web site, though, Google was the logical candidate. “We know them. They have a traffic monetization engine that no one else has,” Parsons said.
While he put to rest rumors that Time Warner would go after British broadcaster ITV or cable systems on the Continent, Parsons intimated that European businesses complementary to or enhancing AOL would be looked at closely.
Worldscreen: Parsons went on to note that for a “traditional media company, like Time Warner, “This would be a tough acquisition to justify at this price, But for Google, it’s in their sweet spot. They are our partner on AOL Video, we know their vision. They’re trying to acquire anything that generates traffic—they monetize Internet traffic. None of the other media companies could have been in that ballpark.”