Charles Dolan Dies: Media Pioneer Who Founded HBO & Cablevision Was 98
Charles Dolan, a cable pioneer and patriarch of the Dolan family that controls media companies, entertainment venues and sports teams, died December 28 of natural causes, Newsday reported. He was 98.
“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved father and patriarch, Charles Dolan, the visionary founder of HBO and Cablevision,” the family said in a statement to Newsday. The news outlet was once co-owned by Charles Dolan and his son, Patrick, who now owns it.
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While Charles “Chuck” Dolan made an indelible mark alongside cable TV trailblazers like Ted Turner, John Malone and Ralph Roberts, he also shaped the industry as a programmer. While on a family vacation, Dolan was mulling a problem facing his company, Sterling Manhattan Cable. He needed a way to offset the hefty costs of wiring the densely populated concrete canyons of New York City (in pursuit of a better alternative to the spotty reception available via a conventional antenna). Dolan’s solution: The Green Channel.
The network, soon renamed Home Box Office, was billed as “the Macy’s of television,” presenting live events, sports and movies without commercial interruption for customers wiling to pay a monthly fee. HBO went on the air in 1972 and led the charge for the cable revolution, with CNN, Nickelodeon and ESPN soon to follow. Customers frustrated by fussing with rabbit ears atop their TV consoles began to see cable as a viable and reasonably priced workaround, with early programming welcoming them to a new, higher-tech TV experience.
“I grew up on radio and radio was free. Then television arrived and it was free, too. The only reason anybody paid for cable was that their reception was bad,” Dolan said in the 2021 oral history Tinderbox: HBO’s Ruthless Pursuit of New Frontiers. At a cable industry convention, the executive recalled, a game-changing exhibit displayed a new box capable of delivering 12 channels. “I thought we could reserve one of those channels to use for a pay-TV operation and offer programming you couldn’t get elsewhere.”
Although Dolan was enchanted by the possibilities of drawing subscribers with content, the HBO experiment was largely a means to an end. In 1973, he sold his interest in HBO along with the Sterling assets to Time Inc., using the proceeds to launch a new entity, Cablevision.
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Although Dolan grew up in Cleveland, he had established his base as a businessman in New York. As the city experienced upheaval and financial duress throughout the 1970s, Dolan set his sights on the suburbs. Cablevision’s headquarters were established on Long Island, eventually taking over a former Northrop Grumman facility in Bethpage.
Cablevision grew into one of the top U.S. cable operators, with service in 19 states, but ultimately refocused on the greater New York area, with systems in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and a slice of Pennsylvania. As a major distribution force at a time when cable was adding millions of new customers each year, Cablevision became the engine of the Dolan media empire, which included a collection of prized New York City assets.
Along with Newsday and the Clearview movie theater chain, the family acquired prestige entertainment venues like the Beacon Theater and Radio City Music Hall. It also took control of the New York Knicks and Rangers and the building where they play, Madison Square Garden. Rainbow Media, which operated cable networks like AMC airing a roster of influential shows including Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, was also under the Cablevision umbrella. Later renamed AMC Networks, it spun off from Cablevision in 2011.
Dolan, who got his start making sports newsreels and industrial films, also saw an opportunity to create regional cable news outlets at Cablevision. In 1986, he was instrumental in the company’s launch of News 12 Long Island, the first 24-hour regional cable news channel in the U.S. It spawned the News 12 Networks group of local news channels in the New York area.
Cablevision was sold in 2016 to French telecom firm Altice for $17.7 billion. The company continues to provide TV, broadband and wireless service outside of New York under the Optimum brand.
In 2020, Charles Dolan stepped down as executive chairman of the board of directors of AMC Networks, which had been spun out from Cablevision into a separate public company in 2011.
The Dolan family, whose net worth is estimated at $5.4 billion, retains a controlling stake in Madison Square Garden, along with the Knicks, Rangers and Radio City Music Hall.
“On behalf of the MSG Family of Companies we mourn the passing of Charles F. Dolan,” a spokesperson for MSG Entertainment, MSG Sports and Sphere Entertainment said in a statement. “Mr. Dolan’s vision built the foundation for the companies we are today, and as a member of our Boards he continued to help shape our future. The impact he made on the media, sports, and entertainment industries, including as the founder of Cablevision and HBO, is immeasurable. His life was a testament to the importance of innovation, generosity, and hard work, and his legacy will live on in the industries he pioneered, the communities he served, and the memories of those who love him. Our thoughts are with the entire Dolan family and the countless people Mr. Dolan influenced throughout his remarkable life. We do not expect this to directly or indirectly change ownership by the Dolan family.”
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