Cablevision to limit investment in Voom

[rickaren]

Friday's filing, pointed out Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Richard Greenfield in an intraday note, specifies that financing covenants for Rainbow will prevent the spun-off company from spending more than $150 million annually on Voom and more than $600 million in total, barring a new financing.



http://www.thestreet.com/_tscana/tech/georgemannes/10175624.html

 

[vurbano]

Now maybe they will cut off that loser Moov channel, combine some others and provide a higher bandwidth with increased PQ. No more money to keep flushing down the toilet by wasting bandwidth on some of these repetitive channels.

 

[Sean Mota]

This is just hypothesis: But what if Dolan decides to sell CVC to Time Warner (as has been speculated for the past year in NY). What are the investors to do?

 

[Sean Mota]

That agreement, says Greenfield, "prevents Voom from completely destroying the value of the existing cable networks that are part of the Rainbow/Voom spin-off and should boost investor confidence that a financing will get done."

The are talking about AMC, IFC, & WE. Tragically, these guys only look at these three channels as being the core of Rainbow revenue. That was an interested quote.

 

[Dvlos]

I hope Time Warner doesn't buy Cablevision, while they built some pretty good cable networks, I wonder what their committment to HDTV would be like. The news of putting Voom on a budget makes sense, CVC stock has fallen little by little since March.

 

[Sean Mota]

CVC does not make money on cable subscribers. Cable subscribers have been leaving to satellite in their area. The knicks and MSG are in the downfall and don't make revenue. You know what makes $$$ to them -- Optimun Online and Phone over internet. I see no future with Cablevision and HDTV. They move a the pace of a turtle with HD.

 

[Seanb61]

CVC does not make money on cable subscribers. Cable subscribers have been leaving to satellite in their area. The knicks and MSG are in the downfall and don't make revenue. You know what makes $$$ to them -- Optimun Online and Phone over internet. I see no future with Cablevision and HDTV. They move a the pace of a turtle with HD.

This is not true. If you read CVC income statement you will see that their Bread & Butter is basic cable subs & the rainbow properties, ex VOOM. Also they have the fastest growing digital subs base of all the cable providers. Which provides the highest RPU. Earnings out in a couple weeks, we'll see what the plan is then. My bet is that NBC/Universal takes a major stake in Rainbow Media aka RM aka Voom and the other content they are spinning off.

 

[Sean Mota]

This is not true. If you read CVC income statement you will see that their Bread & Butter is basic cable subs & the rainbow properties, ex VOOM. Also they have the fastest growing digital subs base of all the cable providers. Which provides the highest RPU. Earnings out in a couple weeks, we'll see what the plan is then. My bet is that NBC/Universal takes a major stake in Rainbow Media aka RM aka Voom and the other content they are spinning off.

Sean,

that's what may be reflect in their income statements. What happens is that they offer the entire packaga of digital cable, optimum online and digital telephone together but what really is drawing people to it is optimum online and digital phone which is a tremendous deal. They had an offer which they stopped of 29.99 for digital phone which draw so many people to them. Offering all the benefits of digital phone which Verizon could not compete with it. Of course, most people will see a huge advantage by ordering the three services together because it offers quite a discount. In terms of their digital cable and HDTV they are far behind TimeWarner Cable. That's all I am saying. TimeWarner cable far advance when it comes to digital cable. One reason I left them for satellite.

 

[barth2k]

From what I hear TWC is pretty decent for HDTV, EXCEPT (and it's a big EXCEPT) they don't have espn b/c of contract dispute with disney.