Cablevision Chairman To Use Cash, Stock To Fund Voom

[mike123abc]

I do not know why people keep harping on the $1 deal hurting VOOM so much:

1. Dish home advantage gives you up to 4 TV boxes for free including DVR

2. DIRECTV and Dish have given away equipment and installation for years with programming commitment.

VOOM is just doing what the competion is doing.

 

[ne1cool]

Dolan FUNDS VOOM!!! - YIPEE

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050310/cablevision_dolan_1.html

 

[Tony N]

I think all this talk about V*s profit/loss/subs numbers misses the point. I would say it is the overall lack of consumer demand for HD. The demand for HD is growing, of course, but a drop in the bucket compared to the demand for DVD's and conventional big screen sets. Simply and sadly consumer excitement over HD is lukewarm and there is no indication that it will really heat up anytime soon. Those of us that have it love it, are very excited about it of course. Not many average joes out there really care. Joe would rather have a mediocre 50 inch that makes DVDs and standard def NFL look decently better than his old 24 inch color set, than spend the same money for a high quality 42 inch wide screen set, and HD satellite service, that looks absoloutely incredible whenever something he likes is presented in HD.

I work at a Big City TV station that has been tranmitting HD for 7 years. Our transmitter site had to operate on back-up power for about 24 hours recently during a prolonged storm. An executive decision was made to take the HD transmitter off the air to conserve fuel, since with the weather, there was no assurance a fuel truck could make it to the mountain top. No viewers complained. If our Analog transmitter goes off the air for 10 minutes the switchboard gets flooded.

I really do hate posting this. I hoped HD was to be the next big thing. Billions have been spent providing it to the consumer yet there isn't a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to getting a return on that huge investment. BUMMER!!

Tony

 

[B.Greenway]

"until March 31" no news really.

 

[TheForce]

Only news is the mechanism by which the guarantee of his agreement will be carried out. This is primarily good news for stockholders.

The real news will be when CD presents his purchase plan. For now the ball is in his court.

Of other news, and it may have been observed elsewhere but I saw the website voom.com is allowing people to buy the service and schedule installations. This was up earlier today but not on Wednesday.

 

[klen]

Charles Dolan was just ranked #355 in Forbe's richest people in the world.

http://www.forbes.com/static/bill2005/name_126.html?

I think he can keep Voom going for a while.....
At 78, he is spending Jimmy's inhereitance for pissing him off.

-k

 

[bobaphx]

Receiving free install and equipment is what got me to be a Dish customer for eight years now. I've paid them a lot of money in those years.
I've just purchased my first HDTV (currently hooked up to Dish and old rabbit ears that I dug out of the garage for some temporary HD.
If Dish had more HD and a good working HD DVR I'd never be looking at VOOM today... but Dish isn't providing what I need at this moment. So, why not take VOOM up on their $1.00 offer.

I'm keeping Dish for the next few months for the 508 DVR I own (got that at a great deal promotion too). If VOOM delivers on good HD, good PQ, and on a DVR in a resonable period of time, then I'm their's for as long as they serve MY needs.
I'm the first in my circle of friends to own and HDTV (and the only one with satellite service as everyone else has cable). If I like VOOM, I'll surely show it to my friends and recommend they try it too.
Giving away free equipment and install... yeh, I think it is great idea and I hope a lot of people sign up for it.

 

[jeremys]

At 78, he is spending Jimmy's inhereitance for pissing him off.

-k

ummm, at this point, I don't know if he is in the will.

 

[calikarim]

Trolls know nothing about business

Last year Cablevision reported operating losses of $211.6 million for the first 9 months (average $70.5 million - actual reported for 3Q04 was $75 million). The 4th quarter had about $95 million in operating losses (not to mention the impairment of $246 million and writeoff of $108.9 million that Cablevision offloaded on Voom on the last quarter).

Just a lurker, the United States government ran a fiscal deficit of 300 BILLION dollars, and our total debt is 5 TRILLION DOLLARS. China and India have trade surpluses, Do we file for bankrupty and let the Chinese walk into Washinton . There is a think called latent potential. The United States is the most powerful country in the world, despite never making a profit. What about he U.S government JUST A LURKER. You know nothing about business


I am in the dry cleaning busines, i invested over a million dollars in my store and for four years i didn't make a dime. Today my store is the largest grossing dry cleaners iN Los Angeles, and makes millions yearly. I lost all four quarters of all four years . Had i listened to you with your dismal profound predicaments, I wouldn't be where am today. That is what separates businessman and visionaries from you trolls. That is why Charles Dolan is a billionaire and founded HBO and you did not.

 

[TechCop]

They promised us a DVR months ago and still, nothing has come of it. If you call a CSR at Voom. they'll tell you it's in beta. If you call another, they'll tell you it's released. Where is it?

Same thing for PPV. Promised, but still nothing...

Seems to me we are up to our a$$ in alligators. I think it's wise to deal with that and finish "draining the swamp" at a later point.

Eddie

 

[vurbano]

Last year Cablevision reported operating losses of $211.6 million for the first 9 months (average $70.5 million - actual reported for 3Q04 was $75 million). The 4th quarter had about $95 million in operating losses (not to mention the impairment of $246 million and writeoff of $108.9 million that Cablevision offloaded on Voom on the last quarter).

Just a lurker, the United States government ran a fiscal deficit of 300 BILLION dollars, and our total debt is 5 TRILLION DOLLARS. China and India have trade surpluses, Do we file for bankrupty and let the Chinese walk into Washinton . There is a think called latent potential. The United States is the most powerful country in the world, despite never making a profit. What about he U.S government JUST A LURKER. You know nothing about business


I am in the dry cleaning busines, i invested over a million dollars in my store and for four years i didn't make a dime. Today my store is the largest grossing dry cleaners iN Los Angeles, and makes millions yearly. I lost all four quarters of all four years . Had i listened to you with your dismal profound predicaments, I wouldn't be where am today. That is what separates businessman and visionaries from you trolls. That is why Charles Dolan is a billionaire and founded HBO and you did not.

Since when is the US govt a business?

 

[vurbano]

The bigger question: will he sell cablevision to finance Voom for the long term?

 

[GadgetRick]

Thank you!

I think all this talk about V*s profit/loss/subs numbers misses the point. I would say it is the overall lack of consumer demand for HD. The demand for HD is growing, of course, but a drop in the bucket compared to the demand for DVD's and conventional big screen sets. Simply and sadly consumer excitement over HD is lukewarm and there is no indication that it will really heat up anytime soon. Those of us that have it love it, are very excited about it of course. Not many average joes out there really care. Joe would rather have a mediocre 50 inch that makes DVDs and standard def NFL look decently better than his old 24 inch color set, than spend the same money for a high quality 42 inch wide screen set, and HD satellite service, that looks absoloutely incredible whenever something he likes is presented in HD.

FINALLY! Someone saying something which make some sense! This is EXACTLY why Voom has failed (so far) miserably. The general public just DOESN'T CARE! As was posted, those of us who want/like HD REALLY love it. Most people just don't care for a whole lot of reasons.

And the poster who tried to compare what's happening with Voom to the US Government just doesn't make any sense. The US government isn't in the busienss of making money. Heck, it's not even a true business. Sure, we try to compare it to business because we have nothing to compare it to. Not sure where that argument came from...

The Rickster

 

[kelljc]

FINALLY! Someone saying something which make some sense! This is EXACTLY why Voom has failed (so far) miserably. The general public just DOESN'T CARE! As was posted, those of us who want/like HD REALLY love it. Most people just don't care for a whole lot of reasons.

And the poster who tried to compare what's happening with Voom to the US Government just doesn't make any sense. The US government isn't in the busienss of making money. Heck, it's not even a true business. Sure, we try to compare it to business because we have nothing to compare it to. Not sure where that argument came from...

The Rickster

They're NOT: how do the pay for all of the extra and bad help they have?, you know 3 people to 1 job. so the other 2 can play games on the NET.

 

[Sean Mota]

Merge threads.

 

[kelljc]

Merge threads.

Don't you ever sleep?

 

[Sean Mota]

I do... Believe me....

 

[kelljc]

I do... Believe me....

I don't even know you but I like your style : " KEEP ON VOOMING "

 

[cfarm]

It isn't that it isn't profitable, it is that it is SO unprofitable. $5 million revenue per quarter isn't going to keep the bills paid.

"So unprofitable"? Compared to what?

The price is higher for Voom than E* or D*. Look at the cost of what they are giving away! Plus E* and D* have now enough revenue that they can GUARANTEE to cover the operating cost of giveaway equipment out of the revenues from existing customers.

Where are the equipment cost figures that you are using for reference to come to this conclusion?

Shouldn't it be obvious that Voom cannot be fairly compared in this catagory simply because the sub counts are so far apart and the customer base is not mature? Both the other competitors have subs that have been around long past the acquisition period where high startup costs hurt. Voom can't be compared on that score because they are new. They just don't have a signfiicant number of free revenue generating subs at this point.

Assuming the $5 million revenue from V*'s customers went 100% in to new installs they would only have enough to cover 10,000 installs (all one room). And V* still has to pay for programming and other operating costs.

V* can survive, but they need to cut costs, get a good long term loan or investors and get the customers needed to pay off those debts.

JL

How do you propose cutting costs? How do you attract customers if you don't have a compelling signup offer? It's a calculated marketing move which takes customer retention and time to work. What is your suggested alternative?

Customer base building takes time. They are doing that as evidenced by the latest quoted figures. It's a startup, therefore sub acquisition costs will hurt Voom's bottom line much, much more than it's competitors. Once a substantial number of subs get beyond the 8-9 month mark they become profit generators. That's still several months out.

If the low end estimate of $2B for startup losses estimate was accurate, at a $20M/mo burn rate(very simplistic scenario), they will have 3 1/2 years before they get there. Don't you think someone might actually have a chance to turn things around in that time? Slow the losses and start it toward profitability

Again, I ask what's the mystery. They are losing money pretty much as expected. They will continue to lose money for a couple/few more years as expected. You can throw numbers out or just say "I don't like it", but unless you have some better reference or experience, you're just complaining for the sake of complaining.

 

[cfarm]

Dolan is racing to negotiate a deal with EchoStar Communications that would alter the one his son, James, the Cablevision chief executive, signed in January to sell Voom's sole satellite for $200 million.

Charlie Ergan likes compelling content. Charles Dolan is negotiating to buy the Rainbow content, among other things. It's not a stretch they couldn't find some middle ground to make both sides happy.

I don't think it's about altering the earlier deal, but instead negotiating a new one. The media is getting as bad with their speculation as some of the posts on this Forum.