Liberty Media wants to take over AOL's dial-up Internet business. Liberty Chairman John Malone said that his outfit would be open to swapping its AOL stake for control of the dial-up business.

So far, he has not mentioned this to Time Warner, but generally he would prefer being involved in a cash-generating company. Time Warner is not making much in the way of cash for Liberty at the moment. An exit from the Time Warner equity state into a cash-generating asset would be attractive, he said.

Malone negotiated the swap of Liberty's holding in News Corp to gain control of U.S. satellite television provider, DirecTV. Quite how long AOL's dial up business will remain profitable is another matter. It has not been doing so well since the days that it used to be an admission that you were a member of the human race if you had at least a dozen AOL CDs arrive in the mail a week.

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