AOL CEO: Catalyst for AOL Growth is Talent

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Much ought to another.

Interesting business that has looked very strong for a year or two now but terrible almost like you're gonna be out of business soon.

That was several years ago shares of -- -- soaring today -- off the highs as you can see intra day the buoyancy losing a little bit of steam but nonetheless.

A very solid earnings report pushing this name higher revenue rising for the first time -- In eight years.

Like -- said it's been a long road here earlier today I asked -- -- chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong.

Who came from Google with the number one catalyst has been to sparked this -- Hi.

Think the number one catalysts actually and this is not going to be a financial metric is talent I think AOL has done a tremendous job.

-- putting the right people in the right seats to drive growth and look on the consumer side with the the properties we have -- and imposed.

AOL properties.

Things like -- Makers those things incredible properties on the advertising side you look at were real they would advertising dot com which we recently -- to AOL networks.

-- what we've done in terms of the business is related to the business overall.

And take a step back and then look at historical -- businesses.

Everything has improved to aren't pretty dramatically and that's because of the talent people we have of the company you fall the company for a long time and I think.

You you know what AOL is capable of and aware -- the right people in the right places you know magic happens.

I I have followed did enough to say that -- You could arguably say the long national nightmare has finally over because you do after eight years -- -- some decent revenues so that's great.

Let's just a drill down a bit on Huffington Post because when you -- spot that.

There were some questions and a little bit of criticism of their spending so much money in retrospect how Smart a deal has this been.

You know I think the Huffington Post look at you know it's very few times during anyone's life that you see brands I can become global brands and I think the -- -- imposed.

From our perspective we knew two years ago and it's a two year anniversary of the deal right now.

That Arianna and her team had built the game changing property and brand.

Wall Street look at the deal and then like first but I think you know.

Wall Street a lot of cases -- lags behind where the opportunities are because they're focused on the here and now.

Then we're focused on where things are going -- I think it's proved out to be true we've had.

Double digits growth in traffic.

We've -- -- internationally we've launched Huff post live which one product of the year from fashionable most innovative media product brand and I look it up -- -- and I would argue it's one the most -- media properties in the world right now.

One of the things that people would point out that critics might say -- the traffic is flat across the board and while you had been.

Declining to stop the slide certainly so there you get the thumbs up but at what point you really see traffic markedly move to the upside.

-- we you know we reported 6% traffic growth which out of the top ten Internet companies as one of the best performances.

And then when you dig underneath that we've also shown that -- legacy business set sail well has declined 1015%.

In terms -- traffic over time.

The new users we're we're bringing in are actually much more engage the users were losing so you see things like.

30% increase in time -- percent increase in engagement metrics -- overall.

Easy things like the Huffington Post which I believe is the most widely distributed -- property on FaceBook.

So you know we're replacing essentially.

The legacy and our users in many cases with people who are of the newer generation Internet where things are going so we -- were happy about the traffic growth.

They just look at Google guy yeah you've really been on a chair having come from Google and just recently were jettisoning some properties that aren't doing as well as you probably would imagine -- weren't quite the right fit such as hit store.

Which is the photo sharing site about dot me you're getting rid of those.

Adding on some original programming deals with discovery and with the speed network which is a part of our family here News Corp.

Are you looking to be it has started a look at this has said -- say -- well coming up with its own shows such as the list.

We're trance logic some of those -- are you looking to be the next two of the net -- and the next Netflix or maybe even a studio itself.

Well we think there's a gap in the marketplace right now where there's tremendous consumer demand for video.

A lot of great content of the world has been locked up -- closed networks on the cable side and then there was -- tremendous program and I enjoyed -- everyone enjoys those.

But you know there's -- -- there's open.

Part of the Internet right now which is consumer usage mobile desktop video tablet that wants video we've been investing original programming.

We've investing your partnerships like discovery and speed TV and those partnerships and -- -- Martha Stewart.

Because we believe that that consumers are gonna consume a lot more content on -- they're gonna get a from cable.

We're also gonna get a from players like -- well sure you have YouTube on one side of the market which is open platform we've had a Julio side which has been a closed.

Set -- really cable.

New contents.

-- well since the middle where we're second after YouTube right now and video views.

At not -- you're in the same position to have a huge cash pile like apple but at some point you might you get a one time special dividend back in December.

Any future chances of shareholder seeing another dividend here.

AOL's outperform -- NASDAQ.

Standard and -- is.

And Dow Jones indexes in the last three years on top of the fact that we gave back one point five billion dollars to investors.

Through their cash dividends or repurchases.

Today we announce another hundred million dollar buyback program.

Overall so I think -- market -- -- we've given back 50% of the market cap.

Stock to investors and -- invested all those innovative products services and content.

Overall so are you know we're operationally friendly were also shareholder friendly we're gonna continue -- -- That's -- no on the dividend.

-- just say it -- don't don't wait for the dividend there closing.

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AOL CEO: Catalyst for AOL Growth is Talent

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