Speaking at the global ad execs knees-up in Cannes, Levin told Reuters that advertising revenue had stopped falling and that AOL was on track to meet 2001 financial targets. This announcement followed in the wake of similar messages from other media company chiefs who also believe that the adspend decline has ‘bottomed out’ (see
Forecasts).
AOL claims that the reason for its resistance to global trends has been its diverse media interests which has allowed the company to sell lucrative packages across its many properties. Following the acquisition of Time Warner in January, Q1 results for the combined companies showed that it had overcame ‘softness’ in the advertising market to post a 10% higher year on year quarterly advertising revenue, $2.05 billion, in line with projections released in January.
Looking to the future, AOL expects to post 2001 EBITDA totals of $11 billion on revenue of $40 billion.
