As cord-cutting accelerates, the leader of Madison Square Garden and the Knicks has
rejected suitors for his cable channels and cycled through CEOs.
AMC Networks said James Dolan has been appointed interim executive chairman of the company, following the departure of CEO Christina Spade on Nov. 29. Dolan had been chairman of AMC’s board of directors.
After announcing the departure of CEO Christina Spade, AMC Networks Chairman James Dolan sent a memo to staff warning the the company was planning to make ‘large scale’ layoffs and other cuts to operations. In his memo Dolan cited the difficulties faced by the pay TV industry and the fact that streaming has not yet replaced the revenues being lost by the traditional cable networks that make up the bulk of AMC’s business.
Exclusives
Potential suitors are not tuning in to James Dolan’s MSG Networks — and it appears there is no buyer now for the regional sports network, sources say. “Nothing is happening,” a person close to the situation says, adding that Dolan still wants to sell the business.
James Dolan’s MSG Networks is sounding out suitors, several sources say. The regional sports network, which has the TV rights for the Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders and other sports teams, collects roughly $5 per subscriber per month — among the highest in the country, according to SNL Kagan. The sales process is believed to be rather young and there is no guarantee a deal will be made.
n June 23, James Dolan’s cable giant finally answers allegations that it strong-armed employees during a bruising, three-year tangle with the communication workers’ union.
Cablevision CEO James Dolan said Wednesday that consolidation of local marketplaces would benefit cable companies. It “would provide a great deal of ingenuity and access to much more resources for customers and lower prices,” he said. “If New York was operated like one market, you would see things like Wi-Fi distributed throughout the entire marketplace,”
James Dolan, managing partner at Cherry Tree Companies, told attendees at Borrell Associates’ Local Online Advertising Conference that local media need to face the truth that if it isn’t digital, the market just doesn’t care. “Valuations are subjective,” Dolan says, but that doesn’t matter. “The market thinks digital has a future. The market thinks legacy media doesn’t have a future.”
Put Money In Digital Now Or Face A Big Fall
James Dolan has sat on all sides of the table in more than 300 media mergers and acquisitions, and he has a message for legacy media executives: invest heavily in digital now or look to a future of sharp revenue declines and much lower valuation for the business. He says media companies should take “a cold, clear-eyed look” at business now and figure out how much cash flow is left, then invest all they can into digital, whose growth potential has enormous impact on their valuation.
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.
There’s more to Cablevision’s $1 billion channel bundling battle with Viacom than meets the eye. Many on Wall Street, skeptical of Dolan’s chances of success, think the legal volley was launched as a way for the executive to deal with a myriad of other issues hampering the company.
James Dolan, executive chairman of Madison Square Garden, which already owns regional sports networks MSG, MSG+ and MSG Varsity, among others, is weighing the rollout of a national cable channel called MSG National, sources say. The new channel wouldn’t be able to offer Knicks or Rangers games — but would look to air behind-the-scenes-type series and what is called “shoulder programming,” which includes video shows on players or pre-game interviews.
