Time Warner, Inc. (TWX)

This is almost purely a personal experience pick. I used to get cable from Adelphia. Time Warner, two years ago or so, bought out Adelphia's assets in my area and thus we switched to Time Warner. In that time period, we have had to worry about losing major TV stations (recently, CBS, and extremely recently, all of Viacom's stations, which weren't removed because they came to an agreement at the last minute) at least four times. Their recent removal of stations from Erie, PA (as part of their agreement with the CBS provider in my area, we suspect, although it was stated to be on the basis that "customers wanted them removed because they were 'redundant' stations") have decimated the basic cable lineup and have mildly affected the digital cable lineup. Adelphia was bad, especially at customer service, but Time Warner, like Comcast, has a special ability to piss off customers again and again and again.

Everyone knows that AOL is basically worthless at the moment, which would explain why they're desperately trying to sell it off. There are simply much better products out there than their TV and internet offerings, namely FiOS, which I expect will gradually siphon off some of Time Warner's market share as their more savvy consumers get fed up with them. I don't know anyone who uses their phone service. Their filmed entertainment division is really the only thing that's very successful, and that alone is not enough to make up for their shortcomings in everything else.

From what I can see, Time Warner will be nothing more than Warner Bros. soon enough. Everything else they offer is a fossil. Verizon and AT&T are the only major communications companies that are offering true 21st century technologies, such as fiber optics or mobile phone service. Unless Time Warner finds a way to transport itself from 1996 into 2009, this dog's going nowhere.