Cablevision Systems

Cablevision Systems Corp. is no more. European telecom conglom Altice said today it has completed its $17.7 billion acquisition of one of the industry’s pioneering cable companies, a deal that makes the newly minted Altice USA the fourth-largest operator in the country. The new company combines Cablevision and Suddenlink, which Altice acquired last year, for a base of 4.6 million subscribers for broadband and video services.

Cablevision Systems Corp. criticized the arguments made by broadcasters in a Supreme Court filing seeking to shut down Aereo, a start-up company that delivers local television station signals to consumers via the Internet. Cablevision said the case that broadcasters including Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC are attempting to make against Aereo is a “willful attempt to stifle innovation.”

Fox announced Thursday that its new national sports network — Fox Sports 1 — is set to bow Saturday with all major cable, satellite and telco TV operators, including late holdouts DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable. FS1 will be distributed to about 90 million U.S. households, according to Fox.

Predicting that transmission of TV will move to the Internet eventually, Cablevision Systems Corp. Chief Executive James Dolan tells the Wall Street Journal that “there could come a day” when his company stops offering television service, making broadband its primary offering. His comments may be the first public acknowledgment by a cable CEO of the possibility of such a shift, long speculated about by analysts. WSJ subscribers can read the story here.

Cablevision Systems Corp. is claiming that Viacom Inc. sought to extract a nearly $1 billion penalty if it refused to pay for low-rated channels it did not want in order to access more popular channels such as Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon.

Cablevision, under pressure to do something about rising cable rates, sued Viacom for block booking, for forcing it to pay for and carry networks it had rather not. A Cablevision win would free it up to put its money where its subscribers’ viewership is — major cable networks and local TV stations.

Cablevision Systems Corp has been accused in a $250 million lawsuit of continuing to bill and failing to offer rebates to more than 1 million customers who lost TV, Internet or phone service because of Hurricane Sandy.

With several parties expressing “unsolicited interest,” Cablevision CEO James Dolan said the company is considering a sale of its Western U.S. operations, which it acquired less than two years ago.

Cablevision Systems Corp reported a third-quarter loss today and its shares fell over 5% as investors worried about a decline in video customers and the financial impact of Hurricane Sandy. The cable provider said costs from Sandy, which knocked out service for as many as half its customers, would be substantially higher than its $16 million bill from hurricane Irene in 2011.

After more than two months during which viewers could not watch football and baseball, or shows like Glee on Fox, the two sides settle a bitter battle over retransmission fees.

Dish Network and Cablevision appear to be in talks to settle their long-running legal spat over the cable operator’s defunct Voom TV service. The court calendar entry yesterday was entitled, “Poss. Settlement,” suggesting the two warring parties could be close to a deal.

Cablevision Chief Executive James Dolan is putting on a full-court press when it comes to winning cable customers. The Long Island-based company, controlled by the Dolan family, is rolling out record cut-rate discounts in a bid to stem subscriber losses and thwart competition from rival Verizon’s FiOS TV service.

BTIG’s Rich Greenfield, one of the most prominent analysts covering the media and telecommunications industry, blasted the cable operator’s cloud of secrecy over the reasons behind departure of its COO Tom Rutledge, who Monday announced he was taking the president-CEO position at Charter Communications.

A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday upheld communications regulators’ decision to bar cable operators from blocking access to some sports programming. The FCC closed a loophole last year that allowed cable companies to deny access to channels delivered via terrestrial ground lines and not satellite feeds.

The controversy over Time Warner Cable’s plan to distribute cable programming on tablets has implications for broadcasters. Like many cable programmers, most broadcasters don’t have all the rights needed to distribute programming on the Internet. Also, viewing on tablets is unmeasured. Do you want your station’s viewing shifting to unmeasured devices?

Now out of the retransmission battle headlines — for the moment — Cablevision Systems Corp. has resumed its strong financial news. For its third-quarter reporting period, the Long Island, NY-based cable operator witnessed a 13.3% gain in net earnings to $112.1 million with revenue climbing 5.6% to $1.81 billion — all from jumps in its video and telecommunications services/products.