According to a person familiar with the situation, issues including vertical integration had prompted the in-depth inquiry. But the two companies appear unshaken by the vigorous scrutiny that has arisen since the announcement of the merger. Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin told a company-sponsored forum in Paris last week that he remained confident the transaction would be completed by this autumn. Bundy says the number is growing by 100 to 120 stations a month. Some stations have almost doubled their listener base by expanding on to the Web.
Experts say that Internet radio is still a relatively small piece of the pie.
Nobody knows what the eventual magnitude will be. It may now be more than a year before users from different services will be able to communicate with one another. Last Thursday was the deadline for proposals to an Internet Engineering Task Force, which has been charged with creating standards to permit instant messages to be sent among users of the dozen or so competing programs. Participation in the group is voluntary and findings are nonbonding. AOL's competitors have asked the federal government to look into AOL's dominant position in instant messaging as part of its review of the merger with Time Warner.