A “surprise” loss for 2008 reflects a company that can’t stanch its gaping wounds.

When Time Warner's veteran publishing unit began laying off employees in large numbers in 2005, it allowed the company to clear out several floors of space at the storied Time-Life headquarters on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue. Prudent managers came up with a great solution: lease the space out to a no-brainer, blue-chip tenant with its own overflowing headquarters nearby.

This morning, Time Warner announced that it will need to take a charge against earnings of between $50 million and $60 million for the "restructuring of a lease for space in the Time & Life building held by a lessee who recently declared bankruptcy." That unnamed tenant? Lehman Bros.

You can almost hear Time Warner management saying, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

The trouble is, that's what Time Warner management has been saying about too many things for too long. The aborted Lehman lease is the least of the company's problems; it is also taking an "impairment charge" of some $25 billion, essentially arguing that its cable, publishing, and AOL businesses are not worth what the company was claiming they were worth as recently as November. The company also disclosed that lower advertising revenues at its publishing and AOL divisions would contribute to a 2008 loss and that it would be increasing its reserves by $40 million to protect itself against cash-strapped cable customers who fail to make their payments.

What is so shocking about Time Warner's fourth-quarter loss is that it's being presented to the market as a shock. It's been eight years since the failed marriage of AOL and Time Warner, and despite repeated efforts at therapy, the union is still broken. None of these problems are new. In fact, the current crisis at Time Warner was set in motion years ago.

When Dick Parsons handed the reins to current Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes last January, there was wide speculation in Manhattan media circles that the detail-focused Bewkes would (finally!) wrangle Time Warner into a media company that makes sense and perhaps deliver the vaunted "synergies" promised so many times in the past by management. The first step for Bewkes was to spin off the cable unit to get Wall Street to look at the company as something other than a utility. Granted, cable stocks had something of a renaissance in the 2006-07 time frame as broadband expanded and triple-play came into its own. But, again, having made the decision to spin off the cable business, why did Time Warner leave themselves holding 83 percent of the bag while Time Warner Cable's stock lost a huge chunk of its value?