Charles Dolan, a titan of the early cable industry who owned Cablevision, launched HBO and AMC Network and later branched out into iconic New York venues and sports teams, has died. He was 98.
Dolan’s death was reported Saturday by Newsday, the Long Island newspaper owned by the Dolan family.
Dolan’s influence in shaping the contemporary television business cannot be overstated. In 1961, he started the process of wiring New York for cable with the launch of Manhattan Cable Television. A decade later, in 1971, he had the vision to launch Home Box Office as a service that would work with Hollywood studios to distribute movies. He was a trailblazer in tapping satellite technology to accelerate the distribution of cable programming across the country.
From 1973 to 1985, Dolan was founder and general partner of the cable company serving Long Island that became the Cablevision multi-system operator serving one of the most lucrative markets in the country. He was CEO of Cablevision from 1985 to 1995. Cablevision’s programming arm eventually transformed into AMC Networks, home to the channel that was founded as American Movie Classics. The company is now home to AMC Network, IFC, WeTV, SundanceTV, BBC America and streaming services such as AMC+ and Shudder. AMC Networks was spun off as a separate company from Cablevision in 2011.
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Dolan has served as chairman emeritus of AMC Networks since September 2020.
In a 2018 interview with the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication, Dolan explained that the concept for HBO grew out of a more limited service that Dolan’s company assembled to distribute movies to high-end New York hotels. The channel launched in 1971 as the Green Channel –which also included tourist-friendly information about New York. It was relaunched in 1972 as Home Box Office when Dolan and his partners received an investment from Time Inc.
“We found subsequently that the hotel people were telling us that the picture that we provided to their guests in the hotel rooms was far superior to the picture they were getting from the television stations of all the regular television programming,” Dolan told Annenberg. “That made us think, ‘Well, maybe we can be of service not only to our customers and the hotels, but also to the residents of Manhattan. So we went back to the City and said, ‘May we have a franchise to provide an improved television service to the residents?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ And they gave us a franchise to serve the residents of Manhattan as far north as 89th Street on one side of town and 72 Street on the other side of town. That was the beginning.”
By the late 1990s, Dolan was the patriarch of the family that owned the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall. Dolan’s son James has taken up the baton as the top leader of MSG and other businesses. The Dolan family sold Cablevision for $17.7 billion to Altice USA in 2016. Dolan’s offspring remain active in media and entertainment, most recently as the backers of the Sphere Entertaiment Co. which has made a splash in Las Vegas with its immersive-experience venue that is expanding into other cities.
Born in Cleveland, Dolan served in the Air Force and attended John Carroll University before moving into media, according to a detailed biography published by the Syndeo Institute, part of Denver’s Cable Center. In the 1950s, Dolan and his wife of 73 years, Helen, started a business out of their home producing short films of sporting events for syndication to local TV stations. That company was acquired by a larger outfit which led the Dolans to relocate to New York. Eventually, Charles Dolan and partners launched Sterling Movies USA, which distributed industrial films to targeted audiences, usually groups gathered at convention hotels.
Around this time, cable TV service was starting to take root in rural areas where residents had trouble receiving clear broadcast TV signals. Big cities didn’t have much need for cable until Dolan realized that service could be spotty in areas of Manhattan because of tall buildings and other obstructions.
“It was while wiring a hotel to pick up the Teleguide signal that Mr. Dolan recognized that the same method could be used to bring cable television to individual homes in New York, where tall buildings provided obstacles to satellite signals. In 1964, Mr. Dolan approached the city with his idea. The following year, he was awarded a franchise to wire the lower half of Manhattan — so began Sterling Manhattan Cable,” the Syndeo Institute biography states. “Knowing that his fledgling cable service needed more customers to lure more funding, in 1968, Mr. Dolan struck an unprecedented deal with Madison Square Garden to carry the New York Knicks and Rangers play-offs exclusively on cable for $24,000. This would be the first of many local programming offerings created by Charles Dolan.”
Nearly 30 years later, in 1997, Dolan’s business empire would acquire full control of the Knicks and Rangers as well as Madison Square Garden after buying out its then-partner ITT.
Throughout his career, Dolan emphasized that his companies always focused on providing unique content and innovative means of distributing them to consumers. Technology was a means to an end for Dolan.
“This is what we believe in,” Dolan told the New York Times in 1997 when he acquired MSG and the teams. “We’re not in the cable business. We’re in the content and programming business. We’re fundamentally a regional company, and if you see yourself that way, and Madison Square Garden is available, you can’t help but want it. Our whole objective is to give the public better access to more events.”
A year after HBO got off the ground in 1972, Time Inc. exercised its option to buy out Dolan’s stake in the service. Dolan used the proceeds to buy a small cable service on Long Island that he would build into Cablevision. When asked in 2018 by Annenberg Center researchers if he regretted separating from HBO so soon, he replied: “Every day.”
ln its later years, Cablevision was ahead of the curve in its embrace of DVR technology, HD picture quality, video on demand options and other consumer-friendly innovations.
Helen Dolan died in 2023 at age 96. In addition to James Dolan, Charles Dolan’s survivors include five other children and numerous grandchildren.