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. Mr Roberts politely but firmly declined.

That hardly seemed surprising. AOL, after all, had long been associated with the worst excesses of the internet boom. On Wall Street, the merged company was best known for the record $99bn loss it suffered in 2002 and for AOL's continuing presence as an albatross around Time Warner's neck.