In the latest eruption of boardroom turmoil at a global media conglomerate, the chairman and chief executive of Bertelsmann of Germany, Thomas Middelhoff, was unexpectedly ousted today after clashing with the family that controls the company.

Analyst: "[Middelhoff] was doing all the right things to turn a provincial, parochial German company into a global player. It's a big step backward for the company."

Is America Online's subscriber base about to peak?

Online ads are down, accounting is in question; subscriber growth rates declining rapidly toward the negative; forced to offer deep discounts to manufacture growth; AOL admits "broadband is [even] less profitable than dial-up".

EarthLink CEO: "Even if [AOL is] wildly successful [in the broadband market], they will never be able to replicate their dominance in dial-up." On AOL's strategy: "It's profitless prosperity."

AT&T is seeking at least $1 billion in cash from AOL Time Warner as a condition for accepting AOL's plan for dissolving the Time Warner Entertainment joint venture.

Shares of AOL Time Warner fell 15% yesterday.

Gloomy ad sales report and outlook; SEC investigates accounting; six brokerages downgrade stock. Analysts see "even more ominous signs" that future ad sales would be "far worse than previously understood."

"If you draw $220 million out of the bank and only put $40 million in, it's not a sustainable business."

AOL's online group is now actually shrinking in sales and profits.

AOL Time Warner disclosed yesterday that the SEC had begun an investigation into the accounting at its America Online division.

Richard Parsons: "The charges are without merit." The company has said that it did not break any laws.

Quarterly AOL revenue was down 3%, but cash flow is down 27% and ad revenue was down 40% with no sign of recovery.

"The Internet may not be doing so great on Wall Street, but it's doing great on Main Street. As far as the people who are online, they're using it more and valuing it more."

For consumers, that may be a good thing. But for media companies looking to the Internet for profits, it remains a frustrating reality. The "digital revolution" that many traditional media executives were convinced would topple them or make them rich has not materialized.

In part, that is because the Internet has turned out to be more of a souped-up telephone than a delivery vehicle for media and entertainment.

The most far-reaching impact lies in the rhythms and habits formed by daily use of the Web's interactive features.

"This is an audience that wants to make their own schedules."

"The move from passive to a more active paradigm in consumer behavior is where the new media has had the greatest impact.

Robert W. Pittman, chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner, resigned under pressure yesterday in the most public repudiation yet of the promises behind the $165 billion merger of AOL and Time Warner.

The departure of Mr. Pittman, 48, who helped build AOL and became one of the merger's most vocal boosters, leaves the combined company almost entirely in the hands of veterans of Time Warner's old-media businesses.

The moves are unlikely to address immediately the biggest questions hanging over AOL Time Warner's stock ... which has fallen more than 70% since the merger.

Richard Parsons, the new chief: "The whole should be, and will be under this management team, greater than the sum of its parts."

Within walking distance of Stanford, where the economist who coined the term "conspicuous consumption" once taught, a dark reality is playing out. Having already gone from boom to bust, many dot-commers are coming to something worse. Unable to make payments, they are selling luxury cars, canceling home renovations and returning jewelry by the box.

This region has grown accustomed to high-technology highs and lows over four decades, but the current dot-com collapse has lasted longer and cut deeper. And the recently affluent technology workers who had come to believe in the "long boom," the idea that prosperity would be permanent, are quietly giving up their flashy signs of success to make ends meet.