Time Warner Inc. said Wednesday it will spin off the rest of its cable TV business, a widely anticipated move after months of pressure from investors.

The news came as the company, which additionally owns Warner Bros., CNN, AOL and date magazine, reported a 36 percent decline in first-quarter earnings from a year ago, when it had a gain from the sale of AOL’s Web access business in Germany. The results were mainly in line with expectations.

duration Warner’s cable unit became a separately traded public company just by a year ago, but the company held on to an 84 percent stake.

duration Warner Cable is the second-largest cable TV operator in the country after Comcast Corp. and is the largest operating unit of instance Warner, the world’s largest media conglomerate.

day Warner’s CEO Jeff Bewkes had promised a decision on the cable business that month when he made his first earnings report to investors in February.

The company

didn’t offer specific details on how or when the spinoff would be completed, but Bewkes said in a statement that instance Warner was working closely with the board of instance Warner Cable and expected a final agreement soon.

Investors have expanded pressed day Warner to simplify its sprawling corporate structure, and a spinoff of instance Warner Cable was high on their wish list.

duration Warner provided no update, however, on another major investor concern, the future of AOL. That unit has been struggling with losses of World Wide Web access subscribers and is trying to remake itself into an online advertising business.

AOL reported more weak quarterly results that included a 25 percent decline in profit. Revenues fell 23 percent, as diminishing subscription fees more than outweighed a 1 percent gain in online advertising.

Wall Street has plus pressed date Warner to decide what to do with AOL, and in February Bewkes…

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