Time warner

Media conglomerate Time Warner says that a fourth-quarter revenue boost and smaller one-time expenses helped it reverse last year's losses. The company is also raising its dividend 13 percent.

Microsoft plans to use its XBox Live as a means to stream movies and TV shows into people's homes. If the extremely ambitious program eventually works as planned, customers could have no need for their cable TV.

When JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Bank of American (BAC) head Brian Moynihan flew today via corporate aircraft to Washington, D.C., to testify before a Congressional panel investigating the financial crisis, their mode of transport raised some eyebrows. But the furor over corporate jets, which are often the most efficient way to transport executives, distracts from the larger issues.

The following is a round-up of news likely to affect stock prices today:

Novartis (NVS) has raised its stake in eye-care company Alcon (ACL) to 77% by buying Nestlé's majority stake for $28.1 billion, the Swiss drug giant said Monday, and has set its sights on acquiring the rest. Novartis acquired an initial stake for $10.4 billion last year, and is offering remaining shareholders as much as $11.3 billion in its own stock for the remaining 23% of Alcon, also based in Switzerland. The deal is subject to customary approvals including a vote by Alcon's board and review by regulators.

Total (TOT) has struck a $2.25 billion deal with natural-gas company Chesapeake Energy (CHK) to enter the U.S. shale-gas market, the companies announced Monday. The French energy concern will pay Chesapeake $800 million in cash and another $1.45 billion to fund 60% of the Oklahoma City company's drilling costs. Shale gas is extracted from rock formations using pressurized water and chemicals, and is becoming an increasingly popular way for companies to drill for gas. The deal involves exploration in the so-called Barnett Shale, situated in north-central Texas.

Fox and Time Warner Cable have reached a deal keeping the network on the cable provider after Fox threatened to walk over a fee dispute. The deal's suddenness likely means Fox got the better end, as the cable giant risked having subscribers go elsewhere for Fox programming.

What media-industry developments and market forces will make headlines in the year to come? Pay-to-read online content, tablet computers, mom-and-pop newsrooms and, oh yes -- banks taking over the magazine and newspaper game.

Apple is just the latest in an expanding list of competitors taking aim at the future of televised media, and the combined assault could finally deliver a major blow to cable's immensely profitable business model.

As Time Warner Cable and Fox Television go head to head over carrying fees, Fox is threatening to withhold its channel from Time Warner on Jan. 1.

It was Independence Day for AOL (AOL) on Thursday as the company was formally spun off from Time Warner (TWX), but the stock's debut on the New York Stock Exchange was something less than fireworks.

Shares in AOL -- DailyFinance's parent company -- spent almost the entire session in the red, but finished down just 0.6%, or 15 cents a share, at $23.52. Time Warner, meanwhile, gained 4.3%, or $1.24 a share, to close at $30.45, helped by positive analysts reports from BMO Capital Markets and Collins Stewart, among other brokerages.

The AOL Time Warner merger of 2000 created a $160 billion colossus that fused America Online, the dominant Internet-access business of the 1990s, with Time Warner, the traditional media mammoth. But in a decade rocked by two recessions, Web access gave way to messaging, search and advertising -- and upstart Google (GOOG) overtook the merged company as the world's biggest Internet giant.