Home Thesis History Merger Sources Further Reading Links Contact

AOL Time Warner Inc. 1990s

back to the timeline

1999
Time Warner Cable holds two video-on-demand tests in Austin, Texas, and Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida

1999
AOL Hong Kong launches

1999
ICQ reaches 40 million members, tripling its number of registered users in the 14 months following its acquisition by AOL

1999
Netscape joins the AOL family of brands, followed by MovieFone, Spinner, Winamp, SHOUTcast and DMS, the leader in online custom market research

1998
HBO announces transmission of HDTV channels; HBO and Cinemax launch multiplex channels.

1998
Teen People launches

1998
AOL acquires CompuServe and online messaging pioneer ICQ.

1997
Turner Broadcasting System's bid for a hockey franchise in Atlanta is approved; the Thrashers, named after Georgia's state bird, begin playing in Fall 1999.

1997
CNN en Español, a 24-hour Spanish channel, launches with 4 million subscribers, the largest cable launch in Latin American history

1997
AOL Japan launches

1997
AOL community breaks the 10 million member mark—and AOL begins delivering more daily mail in the form of e-mail and instant messages than the U.S. Postal Service

1996
Time Warner Inc. and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., merge, creating the world's leading entertainment, information and media company

1996
People en Español launches

1996
Bugs Bunny becomes the U.S. Postal Service's "ambassador to youth," with a commemorative stamp series honoring the Looney Tunes characters

1996
AOL is publicly traded for the first time on the NYSE; Wall Street sign is changed to WAOL Street for the day.

1996
AOL launches the Buddy List instant message feature for AOL members, and the free AOL Instant Message(AIM) service for Internet users

1995
Time For Kids launches.

1995
Time Warner and leading electronics and software companies agree to develop a 5-inch, super-density video disc (SD-DVD) with 15 times the storage capacity of CDs

1995
Time Warner Cable and Time Inc. announce development of a new online service using cable modems (Road Runner)

1995
The WB Network debuts

1995
AOL International launches its first online service in Europe—AOL Germany. AOL UK, AOL Canada and AOL France follow the next year

1994
Time Warner Cable wins an Emmy Award for its pioneering work on fiber optic transmission

1994
Warner/Chappell Music acquires CPP/Belwin, becoming world's largest music publisher and largest publisher of printed music

1994
In Style magazine launches

1994
Turner Classic Movies launches.

1994
Turner Broadcasting System and New Line Cinema merge.

1994
The AOL community reaches 1 million members; AOL links members to the Internet for the first time; AOL.com—America Online's Internet portal—is announced.

1993
AOL becomes the first online service to release a Windows version of its software. Steve Case is named CEO of America Online.

1992
NY1 News launches, the first 24-hour local all-news channel

1992
America Online makes key content deals with news providers such as CNN Newsroom and the San Jose Mercury News

1992
America Online becomes a publicly traded company, issuing 2 million shares of stock on the NASDAQ

1990
Entertainment Weekly launches

1990
America Online begins trying out innovative marketing techniques of giving away free AOL software. Steve Case is named President of America Online.

back to the timeline