Charles Dolan, the astute businessman who created HBO within the early Nineteen Seventies prior to remodeling a small cable TV industry on Lengthy Island right into a multibillion-dollar leisure, sports activities and telecom empire, has died. He was once 98.
Dolan’s circle of relatives instructed Newsday, the newspaper that they personal, that he died of herbal reasons, surrounded by way of family members. “Remembered as each a trailblazer within the tv business and a faithful circle of relatives guy, his legacy will live to tell the tale,” they stated Saturday.
The Cleveland-born rich person were given his get started within the cable industry in Big apple, the place his Sterling Big apple Cable corporate was once awarded rights by way of New York Town in 1965 to cord the decrease a part of the borough for cable TV provider. It was once a strategy to deliver reception to puts like prime rises, the place antenna reception was once tough.
It was once whilst construction out Big apple’s fledgling cable industry that Dolan got here up with the speculation to supply unique programming via cable TV to take a look at to drum up subscribers. His concept, which he detailed in a memo whilst vacationing in France in 1971, was once to offer subscribers get right of entry to to unique motion pictures and carrying occasions. He due to this fact reduce a handle Madison Sq. Lawn to air unique New York Knicks and New York Rangers video games.
“You couldn’t purchase the flicks and the video games except you additionally purchased the reception,” he recalled in an interview with the College of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Faculty in 2013. “We needed to supply an entire tv provider.”
His preliminary concept, which he dubbed The Inexperienced Channel, was once intriguing to executives at Time Inc., the bulk investor in Dolan’s Big apple cable operation.
The Inexperienced Channel was once renamed HBO prior to release, and Dolan and different executives like Gerald Levin sought out unique carrying occasions and flicks for it.
“There was once a dialogue, and the primary concept was once, ‘Smartly, let’s name it The House Field [a slang term for the box that delivered broadcast signals to cable homes],’” Dolan recalled. “Then anyone stated, ‘Smartly, if it’s House Field and we’re promoting motion pictures, why don’t we make it the House Field Place of business.’ That’s what it changed into, and it didn’t take lengthy for that to transform to HBO. Everyone appreciated that identify, and that was once the start of it.”
Dolan’s Big apple cable industry, alternatively, struggled. In step with Felix Gillette and John Koblin’s 2022 guide, It’s No longer TV, HBO mustered a scant 10,000 subscribers in its first yr, a bunch Levin referred to as “very demoralizing.” Time in the long run purchased out Dolan’s stake in HBO in 1974.
Nevertheless it was once after that sale that Dolan made his fortune, bringing cable services and products to New York suburbs by way of his Cablevision Methods Corp. In response to Lengthy Island, Cablevision introduced provider in lots of the town’s fast-growing suburbs to the east, north and west prior to increasing into such different markets as Boston, Cleveland and Chicago.
At Cablevision, Dolan and his circle of relatives attempted to duplicate their good fortune with HBO, launching a movie-focused channel in 1984 referred to as American Film Classics. AMC and its sibling channels operated beneath the Cablevision-owned Rainbow Media banner, which it due to this fact spun off and now operates as AMC Networks Inc.
In 1994, Cablevision obtained a 50 % stake in Madison Sq. Lawn, which integrated the namesake enviornment in addition to the NBA’s Knicks and NHL’s Rangers, from Viacom for a reported $1.1 billion, and it obtained the opposite 50 % 3 years later for $650 million.
Dolan and Cablevision introduced, purchased and offered quite a few companies over time, together with SportsChannel, the primary regional sports activities community within the U.S., in addition to the New York-based theater chain Clearview cinemas. Cablevision additionally obtained the electronics store The Wiz in 1998 and at Dolan’s urging bought Lengthy Island-based Newsday in 2008 in every other $650 million deal.
In 2015, Charles and the Dolan circle of relatives agreed to promote Cablevision to Patrick Drahi’s Eu telecom large Altice for $17.7 billion. AMC Networks and Madison Sq. Lawn proceed to be owned by way of the Dolan circle of relatives, with Charles’ son James Dolan operating the ones companies.
Charles Francis Dolan was once born in Cleveland on Oct. 16, 1926. His father, David, was once an inventor; Gillette and Koblin famous that he got here up with an early prototype of the automated transmission for cars.
“Once I discovered the right way to pressure,” Dolan stated, “it was once in a automobile that didn’t have a snatch. I’d pull right into a gasoline station and the attendants would simply be amazed.”
Whilst attending Cleveland Heights Prime Faculty, he were given $2 to put in writing a weekly column for the Cleveland Press about Boy Scout actions, and that ended in him showing on a radio program. He then served with the U.S. Air Power and studied at John Carroll College in College Heights, Ohio, prior to falling by the wayside to pursue an pastime in telecommunications.
Together with his spouse, Helen, whom he married in 1951, he introduced a sports-reel industry, sending prints of a “Recreation of the Week” to TV stations across the nation in a syndication deal.
He moved to New York to provide for the syndication corporate Telenews, then joined Sterling Tv, which he ultimately purchased with a spouse. Sterling helped its purchasers achieve their goal audiences with motion pictures, generally by way of appearing them at conventions held in New York.
One early deal he did with Sterling was once purchasing cable rights to Knicks and Rangers playoff video games in 1968 for $24,000.
“The entire house video games have been blacked out,” he stated. “The printed stations didn’t lift them since the Lawn was once fearful about jeopardizing field workplace receipts. However our circulate was once so modest in Big apple that they have been keen to make a deal.”
Whilst his fortune was once made by way of offering TV and web services and products, his time launching HBO endured to stay with him. When requested by way of the College of Penn interviewers if if he had ever thought of its sale to Time, he responded, “Each day … I’ve by no means in reality felt that a lot with the exception of HBO.”
Dolan is survived by way of six youngsters, together with James Dolan (and his spouse, AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan) and Patrick Dolan, who runs Newsday. His brother, Larry Dolan, is the most important proprietor of baseball’s Cleveland Guardians. His spouse died in August 2023 at 96.
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