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Cablevision grapples with Voom, fees
By David B. Wilkerson, MarketWatch
Last Update: 2:44 PM ET March 8, 2005
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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Cablevision Systems traded modestly lower Tuesday after a published report said the cable operator had come to no decision on an offer by the company's founder to buy the remaining parts of Voom, its troubled satellite business.
Cablevision's shares declined 49 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $28.80 in afternoon dealings.
The Cablevision board, reshuffled by founder Charles Dolan last week, met but came to no decision about whether to accept Dolan's bid to buy the assets of Voom that weren't sold to EchoStar Communications (DISH: news, chart, profile) in January, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In a regulatory filing last week, Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision (CVC: news, chart, profile) said Dolan had removed William Bell, Sheila Mahony and Steven Rattner from the board of directors. The filing didn't say why the three were ousted, but analysts say Dolan wanted to remove board members who disagreed with his plan to keep Voom running.
Voom lost more than $660 million in 2004, and its failure has created an alleged split between Charles Dolan and his son James, Cablevision's chief executive. James wants to shut the operation down.
Cablevision had originally intended to spin Voom off, along with its Rainbow cable network assets networks: American Movie Classics, Women's Entertainment and the Independent Film Channel. That spinoff, first announced in the fall of 2003, was postponed several times, then finally suspended indefinitely last Dec. 21.
Also Tuesday, a dispute over carriage fees involving Cablevision flared anew. The dispute is keeping Cablevision's MSG Network and FSN New York cable sports networks off of Time Warner Cable systems.
Time Warner (TWX: news, chart, profile) has decided to pull both networks from its systems, MSG Networks said in a statement. As a result, MSG "is proposing binding arbitration with a neutral mediator, which will ensure fairness to both sides and an immediate return of basketball and baseball to New York's sports fans."
A Time Warner Cable spokesman was in a meeting and wasn't immediately available for comment.
Disagreements of this type have been frequent in recent years, as cable and satellite companies seek to control ever-rising programming costs, and programmers ask for higher fees in exchange for the right to carry their content.
Both Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are major operators in the New York City area, the largest media market in the U.S.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&guid={4B727AF2-8F7C-43CE-BC94-4551585238C7}&
By David B. Wilkerson, MarketWatch
Last Update: 2:44 PM ET March 8, 2005
E-mail it | Print | Alert | Reprint | RSS
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Cablevision Systems traded modestly lower Tuesday after a published report said the cable operator had come to no decision on an offer by the company's founder to buy the remaining parts of Voom, its troubled satellite business.
Cablevision's shares declined 49 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $28.80 in afternoon dealings.
The Cablevision board, reshuffled by founder Charles Dolan last week, met but came to no decision about whether to accept Dolan's bid to buy the assets of Voom that weren't sold to EchoStar Communications (DISH: news, chart, profile) in January, the Wall Street Journal reported.
In a regulatory filing last week, Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision (CVC: news, chart, profile) said Dolan had removed William Bell, Sheila Mahony and Steven Rattner from the board of directors. The filing didn't say why the three were ousted, but analysts say Dolan wanted to remove board members who disagreed with his plan to keep Voom running.
Voom lost more than $660 million in 2004, and its failure has created an alleged split between Charles Dolan and his son James, Cablevision's chief executive. James wants to shut the operation down.
Cablevision had originally intended to spin Voom off, along with its Rainbow cable network assets networks: American Movie Classics, Women's Entertainment and the Independent Film Channel. That spinoff, first announced in the fall of 2003, was postponed several times, then finally suspended indefinitely last Dec. 21.
Also Tuesday, a dispute over carriage fees involving Cablevision flared anew. The dispute is keeping Cablevision's MSG Network and FSN New York cable sports networks off of Time Warner Cable systems.
Time Warner (TWX: news, chart, profile) has decided to pull both networks from its systems, MSG Networks said in a statement. As a result, MSG "is proposing binding arbitration with a neutral mediator, which will ensure fairness to both sides and an immediate return of basketball and baseball to New York's sports fans."
A Time Warner Cable spokesman was in a meeting and wasn't immediately available for comment.
Disagreements of this type have been frequent in recent years, as cable and satellite companies seek to control ever-rising programming costs, and programmers ask for higher fees in exchange for the right to carry their content.
Both Time Warner Cable and Cablevision are major operators in the New York City area, the largest media market in the U.S.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&guid={4B727AF2-8F7C-43CE-BC94-4551585238C7}&
