Verizon is buying AOL for about $4.4 billion, advancing the telecom's push in both mobile and advertising fields.
The acquisition gives Verizon an entryway into increasingly competitive online video. The New York company is the country's largest wireless carrier as well as an Internet and TV provider, and it is through wireless technology that the fight is escalating to win customers using video content.
Verizon said last month that it was preparing to launch a video service over the summer targeting mobile devices and it is establishing partners to deliver that content. It also recently began offering various levels of cable service rather than one big cable package, which has been the norm.
That has put Verizon at odds with major content companies like ESPN as it sees more customers cut the cord in favor of video that is streamed online.
Verizon will gain access to AOL's advanced advertising technology, including its "One by AOL" integrated platform. AOL reported a 7 percent boost in revenue during its first quarter, mainly on strong global advertising sales.
It also gains control over significant AOL content, including cultural and political website The Huffington Post, and also TechCrunch. AOL is the nation's fourth-largest online property with about 200 million monthly consumers of its premium brands, according to its website.
Verizon Communications Inc. will pay $50 in cash for each share of AOL Inc., also based in New York, a 15 percent premium to its closing price on Monday.
"Verizon's vision is to provide customers with a premium digital experience based on a global multiscreen network platform," said chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam in a printed statement.
The deal is expected to close this summer and Tim Armstrong, AOL chairman and CEO, will continue to lead that company.
Verizon has 108.6 million wireless customers, 5.7 million FiOS video subscribers and 6.7 million Internet subscribers. It operates in 150 countries.
During its most recent quarter, it saw wireless subscribers grow by 4.8 percent, while FiOS Internet customers grew 36 percent. FiOS cable customers grew 58 percent.
AOL has evolved since its early days as an Internet company with the familiar phrase "You've got mail." It started out as Quantum Computer Services in 1985 and was renamed America Online in 1991. By 1996, it reached 5 million members.
As AOL grew larger, it began to make acquisitions. It purchased CompuServe and ICQ in 1998 and Moviefone and Netscape the next year. In 2000, it acquired MapQuest. A year after the MapQuest purchase, AOL merged with Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner. The deal with Time Warner would come to be considered one of the most disastrous business combinations in history after failing to gel.
The company changed its name from America Online to AOL during that time. In 2009 AOL was spun off from Time Warner, becoming an independent, publicly traded company.
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More