Dolan's D-Day?

ddlsmith

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Voom deadline nears
Cablevision chair must find financing by Monday for struggling satellite service in his bid to revive it

BY HARRY BERKOWITZ
STAFF WRITER

February 26, 2005

Monday is D-Day for Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan.

That's the board's deadline for him and his son Tom to come up with financing so they could take the Voom satellite TV service off the company's hands and try to resuscitate it.

Wall Street analysts speculate Dolan may go to great lengths to come up with funding for Voom, which had an operating loss of $660 million for 2004.

"We firmly believe that Chuck Dolan is committed to building out Voom to prove the skeptics wrong," Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Richard Greenfield told investors, adding that Voom is a "money pit."

That could mean Dolan puts up a big chunk of his family's controlling stake in Cablevision as collateral, or even proceeds to sell the company or its cable channels, including AMC, in the next year or two.

"To raise $500 million of capital to fund Voom, Mr. Dolan would have to sell roughly half of his stake in the company," Smith Barney analyst Niraj Gupta told investors.

Cablevision has agreed to sell Voom's sole satellite to EchoStar Communications for $200 million, leaving Dolan to lease satellite space if he keeps operating the venture, technically referred to as DBS, or direct-broadcast-satellite service.

"Regardless of any theoretical advantages that may be realized from a third entrant in the DBS market, in reality, the market has shown itself unable to sustain more than two nationwide DBS providers," EchoStar and Cablevision said in applying to the Federal Communications Commission to transfer satellite licenses. Four in 10 initial Voom customers dropped the service or were no longer paying, leaving only 26,000 as of Sept. 30, the filing states.

If Dolan does not find financing, Cablevision said it may further slash Voom's estimated value, beyond the $355 million write-down it announced.

The most likely buyer of Cablevision is Time Warner or Comcast, analysts say, adding Cablevision could fetch up to $18 billion in a sale, including $3.8 billion to $4.8 billion for its cable channels AMC, IFC and WE: Women's Entertainment.

Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
 
Sounds like Newsday wants to take the lead in pronouncing "D-Day" for VOOM after being left behind in so many breaking stories in the past 2 months. No one else has come up with the "D-Day" article yet except for them. :)
 
I don't know, Newsday is a pretty reputable newspaper. This article is a little scary as to the future of VOOM continuing beyond Monday. :(
 
Lucky said:
I don't know, Newsday is a pretty reputable newspaper. This article is a little scary as to the future of VOOM continuing beyond Monday. :(

Reputable?? They settled a fraud suit last summer for circulation fraud. LMFAO
 
if voom is going to die let it die quickly so I can go find something else. otherwise bring on the dvr and the new channels. I hate this limbo.
 
me thinks that there's more smoke here than fire. Keep enjoy VOOM it will be here tuesday, next week next month, next three months, next six months, and more.
 
newsday

They have also been negative when it comes to anything cablevision owns. I've never seen a postive article from them about anything that cablevision owns and operates.
 
barth2k said:
if voom is going to die let it die quickly so I can go find something else. otherwise bring on the dvr and the new channels. I hate this limbo.

Having had VOOM for a mere 12 days, I am already addicted. I really want to hear some good news. I hope for survival, because no of the other options really appeal to me. If it is not going to survive long term let it die fast while I still remember what life without all this HD is like.

I really don't watch much tv in general - mostly DVDs (have ~900), but I just got an HD set and wanted to take advantage of it. The Monsters HD channel is on alot here now. I have 5 program reminders on that channel for this weekend.

I know of a few others that are on the fence right now wanting to see what happens to VOOM. I know they are impressed with mine.
 

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