The Associated Press

NEW YORK - Acknowledging the failures of the largest merger in U.S. history, the board of AOL Time Warner Inc. voted Thursday to remove the letters "AOL" from the company's name.

The largest media and entertainment company in the world will now be called Time Warner Inc., as it was before the merger announced Jan. 10, 2000, that was billed as a way to jump-start a media revolution by combining "old" and "new" media companies.

"We believe that our new name better reflects the portfolio of our valuable businesses and ends any confusion between our corporate name and the America Online brand name for our investors, partners and the public," chairman and chief executive Richard Parsons said in a statement.

The name change will be phased in over the next several weeks, affecting the company's logos, the way it promotes its brands and even its ticker symbol - which is currently "AOL" but will revert to "TWX."

The change also will affect the name on the company's new headquarters building, a gleaming 80-story structure in Manhattan's Columbus Circle known as AOL Time Warner Center. The building is almost complete and will be opened to its first occupant, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, in the fall. Time Warner plans to move in next spring.

The pioneering Internet company America Online was once seen as a catalyst to breathe new life into the various media properties of Time Warner, including HBO; Time magazine; and the nation's No. 2 cable company, Time Warner Cable.

Now, AOL is the company's biggest embarrassment. AOL is still profitable, on track to make $1 billion this year, but it's facing a host of problems, including a regulatory inquiry into its accounting and an eroding subscriber base as users drop AOL for faster connections to the Internet.

With hopes for a media revolution now a distant memory, the company will continue to focus on simplifying its tangled corporate structure, cleaning up its balance sheet and selling off businesses not central to its core media operations.

AOL Time Warner has said it is not contemplating a sale or spin-off of the AOL division, focusing instead on trying to fix the problems there.