Voom fate may rest with EchoStar

[Lucky]

The Denver Post


Voom fate may rest with EchoStar
Cablevision's chairman wants to keep its high- definition service despite a pending satellite sale.
By Kimberly S. Johnson
Denver Post Staff Writer


Tuesday, March 08, 2005 -

EchoStar Communications Corp. chief executive Charlie Ergen may control the fate of a fledgling satellite-TV service owned by a major cable company.

EchoStar, based in Douglas County, agreed to purchase Cablevision System Corp.'s Rainbow 1 broadcast satellite for $200 million in January.

But Cablevision chairman Charles Dolan wants to buy the high-definition Voom service from Cablevision despite the pending satellite sale.

Dolan, to the dismay of Cablevision board members who successfully voted to shut down Voom, is said to be in talks with Ergen to either buy back the satellite or lease it to continue serving Voom's 46,000 subscribers.

Ergen "will exact every pound of flesh he can. It has to be worth his while," said Paul Maxwell, chairman of Golden- based Media Business Corp., which publishes newsletters about the cable and satellite industry.

Last week, Dolan ousted three board members who opposed Voom, replacing them with stronger allies, including John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media Corp., based in Douglas County.

Cablevision's new board met Monday but reportedly took no action on Voom.

EchoStar bought the satellite to provide additional programming and services, such as local and high-definition programming, to its 11 million Dish Network subscribers.

EchoStar officials had no comment Monday when asked about the status of the Voom deal or talks with Dolan.

The satellite purchase still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission.

"It's hard to see how they can stay in operation and not experience a service disruption without some assistance from EchoStar," said Bob Scherman, editor and publisher of Satellite Business News.

James Dolan, the CEO of Cablevision and son of Charles Dolan, opposes keeping Voom alive. Last year, Voom reported a loss of $661.4 million.

"Voom has really failed in the market. It's been an albatross on the (Cablevision) stock," said Matthew Harrigan, managing director for Janco Partners Inc. in Greenwood Village.

Cablevision, based on Long Island, N.Y., serves 2.9 million cable subscribers, primarily in the New York area.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~33~2750144,00.html#

 

[jeslevine]

What I find amazing is most of the news stories about what is happening seem to almost relish the thought that Charles Dolan will lose his dream. It is like gawkers at an accident wanting to see who got hurt.

Damn I hate the press

 

[cidbozek]

has it been in some press release that the people he let go from the board voted NO, just wondering if thats a 100% positive that they were part of the group that voted no?

 

[B.Greenway]

When will these so called reporters learn the difference between ONE satellite and ONE up-link center and an entire DBS operation. Geesh

 

[Lucky]

If VOOM's future rests in the hands of Charlie Ergen and Echostar we are in big, big trouble. I hate to say it, but if this is the hold up to the deal, the deal may never happen. It is in the best interests of Echostar to knock out VOOM. Ergen will be impossible to deal with. You can thank Jimmy Dolan for this one. He went and sold out Rainbow 1 without even giving Chuck Dolan a chance to buy it as part of his takeover of VOOM. This is a bad development if VOOM's hands are now being tied by Echostar.

 

[kelljc]

If EchoStar has anything to do with Voom I'll switch to pure C-band, no way EchoStar For Me.

 

[gutter]

Do we know as a fact...that the board postponed their decision? It seems most of the press this morning is conjecture that it was postponed to give more time to Chuck. I thought the spokeswoman for CVC said that there would be no announcement on Monday?

Can anyone clarify?

 

[Sean Mota]

This is just a rehash of the Letter to from Class A inverstors to Dolan. No big news here.

 

[kelljc]

This is just a rehash of the Letter to from Class A inverstors to Dolan. No big news here.

Seem's there is a lot of Rehash, let everyone speak, somewhere deep in all of the post's there are some " Facts ",The Main Fact sofar only 210 Voom Sub's, Just don't sound right, we have to many post's from outsiders, don't you agree::.