Earlier this summer, A few months ago Dick Parsons, chief executive of Time Warner, the world’s largest media company, called Brian Roberts, chief executive of cable operator Comcast, with a surprise offer: an invitation to take a stake in Time Warner’s AOL internet portal. The answer from Mr Roberts was politely but firmly He declined.

That hardly seemed surprising. AOL, after all, has had long been associated with the worst excesses of the internet boom. , from regulatory scrapes with the US Justice Department to over-ambitious business plans. built on little more than bluster. On Wall Street, the merged company was best known for the record $87bn write-off $99bn loss that Mr Parsons was forced to take two years ago it made suffered in 2002 and for AOL’s continuing presence as an albatross around Time Warner’s neck.