Charles Dolan to buy Voom Back?

GadgetRick

Your just pricing the regualr ticket prices. The reason pro teams build new stadiums is suites and advertising.

Don't you think the Jets will get top dollar for ad space on their stadium. Also with the new stad. being in downtowm NY the suite prices will be enormous. Also you forget the Olympics..

They will not take a loss on the stadium.
 
GadgetRick said:
And no, I don't have a news article to say Dolan spoke with X, it's called common sense. Having worked for publicly held companies before and having worked for a couple which have closed their doors I know that's how it works. When a company I worked for closed its doors the founder of the company didn't lose the money, it was investors' money.

No one is debating who loses money. What it has been asked is how to show where did you get the following:

GadgetRick said:
Believe me, Dolan has spoken with other people who have money. He knows people who invest and I'm sure he pitched them on it. Either way, they didn't bite.

The Rickster

If you are using the first quote to conclude the second quote, anyone of us can deduce the same thing and still will be only our own opinion without the merits of published or non-published information (backup information). The fact remains it is an opinion based on the events that unfolded since 1/20 when the INVESTORS of Cablevision decided to sell Rainbow 1.

It is also my opinion that VOOM will not be operating for much longer based on those events that happened on 1/20 (sell of Rainbow 1) but I cannot say it as FACT that it will be done by 1/28 or 2/1 without bringing more to table than just my common sense and opinion (whether biased or not).
 
Let me point out another thing: I think it's unlikely they'll follow the calendar - I think Dolan will keep Voom up and running as far as he sees any chance to save it, in order to transfer/save its userbase. (Or even a a few days longer.)
 
I'm not trying to state anything here as a fact. Sean is correct, it is all opinion/speculation based on what we do know.

Your just pricing the regualr ticket prices. The reason pro teams build new stadiums is suites and advertising.

Don't you think the Jets will get top dollar for ad space on their stadium. Also with the new stad. being in downtowm NY the suite prices will be enormous. Also you forget the Olympics..

They will not take a loss on the stadium.

That's exactly my point. They AREN't going to lose money on the stadium no matter how you slice. I don't know what the price of those boxes are but I doubt very seriously that would cover $800 million anytime soon. That's a lot of change.

And you're right, the ad space is what I'm talking about. It's money like that which they don't include when saying they're losing money.

As far as the Olympics...if (and that's still a big IF at this point) they wind up in NY I don't know how much money (if any) the Jets would receive for them. I have no idea what the arrangement might be. I'm guessing they won't get much since the City would be footing th bill for the other $600 million to build the stadium (the City needs to get their money back, too).

The Rickster
 
Sean Mota said:
No one is debating who loses money. What it has been asked is how to show where did you get the following:

Originally Posted by GadgetRick
Believe me, Dolan has spoken with other people who have money. He knows people who invest and I'm sure he pitched them on it. Either way, they didn't bite.

The Rickster

GadgetRick said:
I'm not trying to state anything here as a fact. Sean is correct, it is all opinion/speculation based on what we do know.The Rickster

Well, your opinion/speculation just might be right:

BANK WEIGHED IN

According to one source familiar with the matter, Cablevision’s board of directors restated its stance to sell Voom after an investment banker said it had no confidence in the viability of Voom.

Last Thursday, Cablevision’s board agreed to sell some of Voom’s assets to EchoStar Communications Corp. for $200 million.

“The board had given him [Charles Dolan] a yellow light to put some money up and move ahead on the spinoff,” said one source familiar with the matter. “That light changed to red, probably because an investment-banking firm came in and said, 'We’ve updated the dynamics of what’s going on in the world and it makes no sense.’ ”

The source said that he did not know the identity of the investment banking firm, but added that Charles Dolan has been making the rounds at several investment bankers, looking for possible funding for Voom. He found no takers.

Charles Dolan launched Rainbow DBS about a year ago, but the service has run into myriad troubles since. Voom — which offers more than 35 channels of HDTV programming, much of it exclusive content — has blown through more than $500 million in funding since its inception and could need as much as $1.5 billion to $2 billion more over the next several years to build and launch new satellites.
DOLAN BID HINTED

Charles Dolan and his son, Cablevision chief information officer Thomas— who was slated to become CEO of RME after the spinoff — also sent out a memo to Voom employees Jan. 19, suggesting the Dolan family could be a bidder for Voom.

“Potential bidders for RDBS include members of the Dolan family,” the memo stated. “We love working with a skilled group as dedicated as the RDBS staff, and we love the Voom project.”

The memo was posted on a Web site — satelliteguys.us — that boasts the largest Voom consumer forum on the Internet. Last Thursday morning, the Web site said it was asked by Voom officials to remove the memo from its forum, and it complied.

While Greenfield said that he was not able to confirm the memo’s authenticity with Cablevision management, he was able to confirm with two different Rainbow Media employees that such a memo was set out Wednesday afternoon by Charles and Tom Dolan.


http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR200501243020.33_dc46006d2d7fc4f2
 
The REAL Deal

I am an executive (CTO) and I understand this situation very well...

// crawling up into charlie's colon //

>Pointing with laser pointer
"I would like to point out to you the thick layer of crust on the walls of Charlie's colon. They are caused by massive dosages of Tums and Pepto Bismol. This was directly caused by the massive loss of money caused by the failed VOOM venture."

>Pointing around the exit door with the laser pointer
"As you can see here the exit has been significantly widened by massive trauma caused by the Cablevision board of directors coming in the wrong way."

// crawling out of charlie's colon //

Now you can see some of the reasons why he won't buy VOOM. Rich men know when to walk away and when to run away. Charlie is preparing to sprint.

HD
 
Well, you're wrong, but it's because...

You live in NY and have an extremely skewed perspective. I couldn't care less about the Jets new facility. You're not exposed to small markets, and frankly don't seem to have a clue about how the non-mega markets live. The fact is that revenue sharing first of all doesn't exist at all in some sports, and doesn't even put a dent in other sports. The real money is excluded from the revenue share deals. AND revenue sharing is really only effective if there are also salary caps. Otherwise, it's a help, but often just not enough.

Also, you don't know much about how companies work. You completely missed the point. Please answer my question. How many companies can you name that had year over year 10% or greater losses for any real length of time and are still in business? There are only so many large markets to go around. You don't just create them. Or, do you think we should just reduce the number of overall teams? QUIT MAKING ALL YOUR ASSERTIONS BASED ON THE NEW YORK MARKET AND THE JETS!!!! Friggin crazy. Try the NHL (lots of bankrupt teams, and teams on the market, out of control) and Baseball (again, bankrupt teams, players getting dumped for cash, teams on the market).

Also, just how many teams are publicly owned? They're not. That's right, so when the team loses money - guess what? The owners lose money. If they don't have huge holdings to support their "habit" they can only survive so long. Then, the team gets sold to somebody else who tries to drag it out of bankruptcy.

Finally, I can EASILY give you examples of companies that turned public, and then went out of business, and whose founders lost oodles of money - because, well they are often the largest shareholders! You see, they really believe that the stock will take off and make them zillionaires, so when it crashes they can get killed too.


GadgetRick said:
Well first, I'm not trolling for Dish or anyone else. Just being realistic. And no, I don't have a news article to say Dolan spoke with X, it's called common sense. Having worked for publicly held companies before and having worked for a couple which have closed their doors I know that's how it works. When a company I worked for closed its doors the founder of the company didn't lose the money, it was investors' money.

As far as sports goes, I hear the same argument over and over yet I've not seen any hard numbers from anyone in any league (excluding the NHL) which shows ALL sources of revenue (including merchandising/advertising/TV contracts) while still showing a loss. Want to know why? They aren't publicly traded companies so they don't have to disclose what they make/lose. We have to take it on blind faith they are losing money. I just find it difficult to believe any of these guys are going to continue to lose the amount of money they claim they are for years and years. Just not gonna happen. I wouldn't do it and neither would you. At some point you'd say to yourself, "I'm losing too much money. I've got to get out." But that doesn't happen very often does it? Because they're making money elsewhere.

Again, I'm not saying there isn't a team or two who loses money but they aren't going to lose money for long or they will be sold/moved/out of the league they're in. You think owning a sports franchise is a hobby for some rich guy/gal to pump their hard-earned money into with no return?

Think about it. The Jets are working to have a new stadium built. The stadium is going to cost around $1.4 BILLION (I live in the area so I've been following it). The Jets are throwing in something like $800 MILLION of that. Now let's just do some math here. They play in the Meadowlands, which holds approximately 60,000 people. What's an average ticket price for a game, say, $50? If we use that the Jets bring in $3 Million per game on tickets (assuming a sellout. They only play 10 home games a year (not including potential playoffs and including 2 pre-season games which might not sell out). So they're bringing in about $30 Million in tickets. Where is the other $770 Million coming from!!??

The other thing people fail to realize (who may not live in a large-cap market) is the large cap teams will contribute a LOT more to the pool of money the various leagues have for revenue sharing or whatever they call it in their respective league. So the small cap teams receive money from these pools which aren't figured in when saying they're losing money.

It's an argument I've had with other people. Because they're not public companies it's hard to have a hard conclusion but, suffice to say, most teams just aren't losing money. They can't lose the kind of money they claim to be losing and still stay in business. And it is all about business...

The Rickster

P.S. I lost my voice at the Eagles game the other day so I can't make phone calls. That's my excuse. :)
 
bruce said:
The source said that he did not know the identity of the investment banking firm, but added that Charles Dolan has been making the rounds at several investment bankers, looking for possible funding for Voom. He found no takers.

This has to be one weird thread. On the one hand we are talking about investors and VOOM and the other topic is the Jets/Stadium/Investment situation. I have been tempted more than once to separate both. Anyway just a thought.


Bruce good finding! However, it is an unknown source that did not disclose how many takers were not taking. I mean what is the Denominator looks like since we know the numerator so far is 0. So is it 0/1 or 0/2 or 0/5 or 0/100 or 0/1000, etc... How many "takers" declined?

P.S. I ask because the search may or may not be over. But so far you are right there is no taker otherwise we would have heard it.
 
Very Weird

What does the Jets and there Staduim have to do with Voom and there investors.LOL :D
 
Sean Mota said:
Bruce good finding! However, it is an unknown source that did not disclose how many takers were not taking. I mean what is the Denominator looks like since we know the numerator so far is 0. So is it 0/1 or 0/2 or 0/5 or 0/100 or 0/1000, etc... How many "takers" declined?


Thanks Sean, your right about not knowing how many turned it down, but based on how ( and I am not trying to flame this thread, so stay away vurbano ) much money Voom has lost and the stock analysts combined with investors that know nothing about HD there might have been a few until Mr.Dolan just gave up ( remember, the board started this a month ago, so Mr.Dolan had a month between "strategic alternatives" and the sale to E*).
 
VOOM is Still Advertising

I was just watching HDNET on E* and saw an advertisement for VOOM about a 3 room deal for new customers for $1(or something like that) if you commit to a certain amount of programming.

What is going on?
 
Good question...

Not sure how we got off on such a tangent but it's fun anyway.

Oh, and I HAVE lived in small cap markets so, yes, I do actually have a clue. And what bankrupt baseball teams might you be referring to? Last time I checked the Devil Rays were crying the blues (but still operating as normal) and the Expos have been crying the blues and MLB took them over. Other than that I don't know of other teams filing for BK.

And I won't bore the rest of the thread talking about why salary caps don't work. The NFL is the closest thing to a sport with a cap which works but you get a couple of teams which are better than the rest then a lot of sub par teams after that.

Also, in answer to your question I can show you a LOT of small businesses which are showing a large loss each year yet keep on going. A public company couldn't get away with this as the shareholders would not allow it for long.

When a public company goes under the stock is worth nothing (as you pointed out). However, it's not like the founder lost all that money since he/she didn't actually BUY those shares, rather, they granted the shares to themselves with a specific strike price (below what the market value was at the time they issue them I might add). And, they don't PAY the strike price until they cash in the stock (i.e. sell it). Then they are just talking about the difference between the strike price and the selling price. So, no, they're not losing that money.

I'm not saying they aren't losing some money. On the contrary, if it's gotten to that point, and they have not had another business which HAS worked out, they probably put up their own cash to get started. So they're out that money.

Either way, the bottom line is people who are rich business people tend to stay that way by not putting their own money on the line all of the time. As I've been told by many good business people, "Don't lose your own money on a business idea if you can lose someone else's." Ok, maybe not in those exact words but that's the idea.

The Rickster
 
GadgetRick said:
Think of it this way. Say you start your own business. It costs $x to get it going. You're cool with that. It's going to cost a little to make money in the long run. Well, a year later your business is doing better but now it's costing you $x+50% to do business. How long would YOU keep that business alive if there were no signs of breaking even/showing a profit in the future? I'd venture to guess not very long.

Hum, I'm thinking, let's see. I'm a Billionaire with a money loosing business. What do I care if it makes money? If my Billion was liquid assets in a simple interest baring savings account the interest alone would keep the business funded for centuries.

No, I'm not a billionaire. If I was I would have bought VOOM. But I do own broadcast facilities that have never made a dime. Why? Because for me providing a service to the public is far more important than making tons of profit.
 
Charlie doesn't really have to buy it back. All he has to do is sell the programing like he does his other channels. He doesn't need the board. Just vote his stock, Tom's and his other friends. Stock holder votes trump board. Ask Michael Eisner after his last stormy stockholders meeing where he got demoted.
 
Thanks People

I am happy everyone is posting to my thread i was going to be a Voom customer soon but i guess i will never no how much voom meet to all of you loyal customers. DishNetwork gave me a great deal i could not pass up so coming next week i will be a DishNetwork sub. I will keep coming in here hoping Voom will stay around and maybe one day i could enjoy Voom as much as all of you. :D
 
SonicRob said:
I am happy everyone is posting to my thread i was going to be a Voom customer soon but i guess i will never no how much voom meet to all of you loyal customers. DishNetwork gave me a great deal i could not pass up so coming next week i will be a DishNetwork sub. I will keep coming in here hoping Voom will stay around and maybe one day i could enjoy Voom as much as all of you. :D
Now this is closer to how I've come to expect a SonicRob post to read. :D

Hey Rob, where did the original post in this thread come from (I'm assuming you didn't actually write it, right?). Newspaper? Web site? Who wrote it? In general, when posting something you didn't write you should provide this information, otherwise it appears that you're trying to pass it off as something you wrote.
 
Fourm

I got it from another fourm he got it from Bloomberg.com it was a good article and i take no credit for it god knows i can't spell. :D
 

WHO will pull the coax on VOOM?

New install phone number?

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