Cablevision Group

Overview

New York-based Cablevision Systems provides cable television and telecommunication services to some 3 million customers in and around New York City. It's most significant for its Rainbow Media subsidiary, which operates national cable tv networks and regional sports channels in the US. Aggregate revenue in 2000 was around US$3.94 billion.

The group

Like TCI/Liberty Media and Comcast the group began by rolling out a cable television infrastructure (in this instance across Long Island and Manhattan) before moving into packaging content for other operators and going upstream by buying sports teams.

Charles Dolan was initially active as a program syndicator and in the early 1960s formed Teleguide to provide online information services to New York City hotels.

He gained an early franchise to cable Manhattan but was bought out by Time and established Cablevision in 1973 after buying that group's Long Island network. He subsequently cabled much of Long Island and acquired cable systems in Boston, Cleveland and Kalamazoo.

In 1976 Cablevision launched the first regional SportsChannel. Four years later it created Rainbow Media (now partly owned by NBC and MGM), which launched several national channels - such as American Movie Classics and Bravo - on 110 cable systems in 22 US states. It concurrently established or acquired other regional sports channels, mostly in partnership with Murdoch's Fox.

Cablevision bought Madison Square Garden, the New York Knickerbockers basketball team, the New York Rangers hockey team, the Clearview cinema chain and a lease on Radio City Music Hall. Life among the cowboys on the cable frontier has been rough. Cablevision's been criticised by consumers and government agencies for poor performance and high prices.

It's disposed of most of its infrastructure outside New York and New Jersey, bought an electronics retailing chain - The Wiz - which didn't appear to have worked much magic and has had uncertain success in providing telephone and internet services using its remaining infrastructure.

In Movember 2002 it sold its Bravo cable tv channel to NBC for US$1.25 billion, followed by announcement of an agreement to dispose of The Wiz and to spin off its satellite television and Clearview Cinema interests.

In 2005 the Dolan family (with 71% of Cablevision's voting rights but only 20% of its equity) announced a US$7.9 billion offer to buy out the public shareholders of Cablevision Systems and spin off the company's entertainment assets.

Studies

There are no major studies specific to Cablevision. For the cable industry see George Mair's Inside HBO: The Billion Dollar War Between HBO, Hollywood & the Home Video Revolution (New York: Dodd Mead 1986), Stephen Keating's Cutthroat: High Stakes and Killer Moves on the Electronic Frontier (Boulder: Johnson 1999) and L J Davis' The Billionaire Shell Game: How Cable Baron John Malone and Assorted Corporate Titans Invented A Future Nobody Wanted (New York: Doubleday 1998).

There are perspectives in Road Warriors - Dreams & Nightmares Along the Information Highway (New York: Dutton 1995) by Daniel Bursten & David Kline, The Highwaymen - Warriors of the Information Superhighway (New York: Random 1997) by Ken Auletta and Patrick Parsons' The Cable & Satellite Television Industries (Boston: Allyn & Bacon 1997).