Time Warner

How many corporations can lay claim to owning a major television network, a major record company, a major movie company, a major publishing empire and a major cable company? There's only one, and it's Time Warner. As far as corporations go (in the field of entertainment, anyway) it doesn't get much bigger or all-encompassing. Look through your CD collection and count the number of discs with Warner Bros., Reprise, Rhino, Elektra, or Atlantic written on the spine. Flip through cable channels and you're bound to run into a Turner network. And then there's The Matrix: Once again, brought to you by the letter W and the letter B.

Time Warner is everywhere and when all is said and done in the entertainment industry, they've got a lot of the good stuff. They have their share of the other stuff too (Cher, for example), but who doesn't? Most importantly, they don't pack their TV schedule with disturbing "reality" shows catering to the lowest common denominator, they don't blatantly promote their films on their own cable networks and they don't lay off 50 percent of their recording artists after a merger. In other words, they are not Fox, Viacom or Seagrams (owners of Universal Music Group and now Polygram).

Time Warner owns a number of cable networks, and while the most prominent ones are HBO and CNN, for my money the real jewel of their cable operations is TNT. TNT is something of a mixed bag as far as cable stations go. Daily reruns of Babylon 5 and ER were both serious addictions of mine during the past two years. On the other hand, TNT Monday night is devoted to World Championship Wrestling, which you couldn't get me to watch even if you pried my eyes open, strapped me to a chair and played Beethoven's Ninth. While many cable stations play four- or six-hour blocks of TV shows repeated over and over, TNT has pioneered the unique programming practice of playing a two-hour movie three times in a row. If this movie happens to be Jaws then there's no harm done, but more than likely it's CHiPS '99.

TNT may have its faults, but it earns its place as a quality network if only for one show:Monstervision. While I can't say I watch Joe Bob Briggs' horror movie smorgasbord with any degree of regularity, very few shows have made me laugh as hard. Television needs more people like Joe Bob. Hell, television needs more people named Joe Bob. If this weren't enough, TNT also makes movies in-house, and good ones at that. Try to catch Pirates of Silicon Valley this month. If you turn it on in the middle of the film, don't worry; they'll play it again at least twice more when it's over.

One of Time Warner's other secret treasures is the music archivist's wet dream, Rhino Records. I didn't even know Rhino Records was part of the Time Warner family until I checked out the Warner Bros. site. As long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by the history of rock 'n' roll music. While there are a number of good books out there on the market, one has to purchase a hell of a lot of CDs in order to provide a decent soundtrack. Rhino has solved that problem by providing the best compilation discs of just about every musical genre ever, the most recent of which being the Post Punk Chronicles Vols. 1-3. Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it. Those who don't listen to music history are bound to have really crappy taste in music. I thank God for Rhino records every day. They almost make up for that Cher song. Almost.

Time Warner seems to distinguish itself more by its acquisitions than its innovations. In the late '60s Warner Bros. music picked up Elektra and Atlantic, one of the top folk and R&B labels, respectively. WEA, as the conglomerate came to be called, boasts an artists' roster including the likes of Ray Charles, Otis Redding, The Doors, The Stooges, MC5, Booker T & the MGs, Black Sabbath and the Grateful Dead. The acquisition of Ted Turner's companies (including CNN, TNT, TBS, New Line Cinema, the Braves, the Falcons and every man, woman, and child in Atlanta) was another coup for Time Warner, and left Ted wealthy enough to pay off some of the United States' back debts to the UN.

Still, the specter of "colorization" taints Turner's legacy–not to mention the "Tomahawk Chop" and the "Dirty Bird." And let's not forget the Time part of Time Warner, responsible for the pabulum that is People Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. And after all, is Time Warner's ownership of CNN any less of a conflict of interest than Disney's ownership of ABC or General Electric's ownership of NBC?

When the major outlets of news are controlled by some of the largest and richest corporations in the world, can they really be trusted to bring us impartial and unbiased news coverage about their parent companies? Imagine Microsoft's PR machine deciding which news stories make the cut.

I could go on and on, but as much as I bitch about large corportations taking over the world, I don't ever really do anything about it. If, on the other hand, I turned on the TV one day and it was all static I would be terribly upset. Time Warner may only be an entertainment company, but if we take a good hard look at our lives, there's precious little that we value more than good entertainment.

— Nicholas Coleman (ncoleman@wesleyan.edu)