Charles F. Dolan, the founder of Cablevision and a key figure in the development of cable television, has died at the age of 85.
The newspaper reported that he died of natural causes, surrounded by loved ones. Remembered as both a trailblazer in the television industry and a devoted family man, his legacy will live on, they said Saturday. The Cleveland-born mogul got his start in the cable business in Manhattan, where his Sterling Manhattan Cable company was awarded rights by New York City in 1965 to wire the lower part of the borough for cable TV service.
It was a way to bring reception to places like high rises, where antenna reception was difficult.It was while building out Manhattan’s fledgling cable business that Dolan came up with the idea to offer exclusive programming through cable TV to try to drum up subscribers. His idea, which he detailed in a memo while vacationing in France in 1971, was to give subscribers access to exclusive movies and sporting events. He subsequently cut a deal with Madison Square Garden to air exclusive New York Knicks and New York Rangers games.in an interview with the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School in 2013. “We wanted to provide a complete television service.” His initial idea, which he dubbed The Green Channel, was intriguing to executives at Time Inc., the majority investor in Dolan’s Manhattan cable operation.“There was a discussion, and the first idea was, ‘Well, let’s call it The Home Box ,’” Dolan recalled. “Then somebody said, ‘Well, if it’s Home Box and we’re selling movies, why don’t we make it the Home Box Office.’ That’s what it became, and it didn’t take long for that to convert to HBO. Everybody liked that name, and that was the beginning of it.”, HBO mustered a scant 10,000 subscribers in its first year, a number Levin called “very demoralizing.” Time ultimately bought out Dolan’s stake in HBO in 1974. But it was after that sale that Dolan made his fortune, bringing cable services to New York suburbs via his Systems Cor
CHARLES DOLAN CABLEVISION CABLE TV HBO TELEVISION INDUSTRY
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