UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ On Track For $27M … 
‘Mike & Molly’ Creator Mark Roberts To … 
Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts Set For … 
Hammond On Cannes: Weinstein Brings Out Stars For 2013 … 
Cannes: Fake Gunshots Interrupt Canal Plus Live Broadcast … 
‘The Great Gatsby’ Starts With $5.4M … 
Cannes: Music Box Acquires Competition’s … 
Cannes: Bruno Wu & Pierre-Ange Le Pogam Kick Up Angel … 
UPDATE: Amazon Studios Begins Pilot Pickups; … 
Bruce Rosenblum Bids Classy Goodbye 
RATINGS RAT RACE UPDATE: ‘American Idol’ Hits … 
UPDATE: ‘Iron Man 3′ Box Office Crosses $1B … 
John Lesher’s Le Grisbi Teams With DCM Productions … 
Upfront Market: Will Auto Makers Subsidize TV … 
Cannes: Thief Makes Off With $1M+ In Chopard Jewelry Meant … 
Cannes: Cyrus Nowrasteh To Helm Film On Soviet Dissident … 
‘Scandal’ Finale On Small Screen And Onstage At … 
Cannes: Cassian Elwes, Robert Ogden Barnum Launch e2b … 
SPOILER ALERT! NBC’s ‘The Office’ Finale 
‘Modern Family’ Gets Cable Makeover For Launch … 
The stock was just up 3.6% last year, but the board says that execs did a good job despite “the continuing difficult economic and competitive environment in 2012 and the impact of Superstorm Sandy.” Jim Dolan‘s package consisted of $1.8M salary, $3.7M stock awards, $6.9M option awards, $3.7M non-equity incentives, $238,429 change in pension value, and $592,715 in other compensation, according to the proxy filed at the SEC this evening. The package was just a little bigger than the one Cablevision gave Charles Dolan, Jim’s father and the company founder. He made $16.6M, +51.1%. Jim’s compensation was just 2.1 times the median for other execs if you include Charles, which would be below the level (3 times) that makes corporate governance monitors worry that the CEO wields too much power. Cablevision shouldn’t have to worry that Jim Dolan might bolt to work somewhere else. His family controls 72.9% of Cablevision’s voting shares. Still, the board benchmarked his pay against CEOs of what it considers to be peer group companies including Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, Viacom, CBS, CenturyLink, Dish Network, Liberty Media, Frontier Communications, Level 3 Communications, Windstream Corp, and Charter. The shareholder meeting will be held May 23 in Bethpage, NY.
Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan Made $16.9M In 2012, +47.3%
Cablevision Management Realignment A Family Affair
CEO Jim Dolan didn’t have to look far to find the three execs he just named to top jobs reporting to him. He appointed his wife Kristin to a new position of President of Optimum Services, giving her … Read More »
Cablevision Chief Attacks Viacom’s Program Pricing Policies, But Won’t Discuss His Own
What does Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan think about the forces that contribute to rising pay TV prices? Depends on what hat he’s wearing, based on his rocky performance on the cable company’s conference call with analysts this … Read More »
Cablevision’s Jim Dolan Quits Live Nation Board
The announcement, in a Live Nation SEC filing today, offers no explanation for the resignation that it says was tendered Friday and was “effective immediately.” But it follows the surprise year-end resignation of Irving Azoff, who … Read More »
Cablevision Builds Its First Branding Campaign In A Decade Around “Optimum”
The new sales effort puts a spotlight on Kristin Dolan, who’s Cablevision‘s senior EVP Product Management and Marketing — and also happens to be the wife of CEO Jim Dolan, and a member of the boards of Cablevision, AMC Networks, and Madison Square Garden. A long-time Cablevision employee, she formally took charge of Cablevision’s image machine last November. But analysts noted that her power at the company grew early this year as several top execs left, including COO Tom Rutledge and Marketing EVP Jonathan Hargis. (Both are now at Charter Communications.) BTIG analyst Rich Greenflield said in March that Jim Dolan decided to take control of operations because he blamed the old guard for allowing the company to lose ”both its technology and marketing edge.” Marketing is especially important for Cablevision. It faces stiff competition from Verizon FiOS in many of its systems in the tri-state area around New York. The company’s shares are down 7.7% over the last 12 months, a stark contrast to Time Warner Cable’s +43.7% and Charter’s +64.8%. Read More »
Cablevision’s “Dramatic And Rapid” Executive Exodus Continues
“Cablevision is witnessing one of the most dramatic and rapid management turnovers we have ever witnessed in our coverage of the media universe,” says BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield — Wall Street’s fiercest critic of the company and its strong-willed CEO Jim Dolan. Greenfield commented after the Long Island-based cable operator announced that David Klein is leaving as head of Cablevision Media Sales, to be replaced by Gregory McCastle, who was with AT&T. The move follows the exit of COO Tom Rutledge (now CEO of Charter), CFO Mike Huseby (who just became CFO of Barnes & Noble), President of Cable Operations John Bickham, CMO Jon Hargis, Corporate Engineering EVP Jim Blackley, and Consumer Operations EVP Kip Mayo. Greenflield says that Dolan is taking control of operations because he blames the old guard for allowing the company to lose ”both its technology and marketing edge.” The problem? “We simply do not have enough confidence in Jim Dolan to drive free cash flow growth in 2013 and beyond,” Greenfield says. Cablevision has lost 58.1% of its market value over the last 12 months.
Here’s today’s announcement. Read More »
Another Cablevision Exec Leaves As Analysts Question Jim Dolan’s Game Plan
UPDATE, 5:15 AM: Cablevision provided this description of Kristin Dolan’s background and her responsibilities as Senior SVP of of Product Management and Marketing following the departure of Marketing EVP John Hargis: “She is currently focused on brand identity and new product initiatives, and has been with the company for more than 20 years. This includes many years working directly in the Cablevision product group, during which she took a leadership role in the development, launch and continued development of our iO TV digital cable service. For the last three years, she has been running our Strategic Product Development Group, focused on long-range development across all of our services. She is well known and highly regarded in the industry.”
PREVIOUS, WEDNESDAY 8 PM: Marketing EVP Jonathan Hargis, who has been with the company since 2000, is the latest high level exec to bolt — and that’s sure to leave investors even more baffled than they were before about CEO Jim Dolan’s plans for Cablevision. The official word is that Hargis will resign this month “to pursue other opportunities.” But the company release didn’t name a replacement, which suggests that Jim’s wife Kristin — who’s senior executive vice president of product management and marketing, and a member of the Cablevision board– will play a bigger role. Analysts who have tried to determine how broad a mandate she has, and how Jim plans to manage things, say that they’ve yet to hear satisfying answers. Prior to Hargis’ departure, BTIG’s Rich Greenfield urged management explain
Time Warner Cable And Madison Square Garden Resolve Carriage Impasse
UPDATE, 3:18 PM: MSG just issued a statement saying that it has “a tentative agreement” with Time Warner Cable to carry MSG, MSG+ and Fuse “effective immediately.” The company thanked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General … Read More »
AMC Networks Shares Come To Life Following ‘Walking Dead’ Success
This is one heck of a week for the Dolan family. It isn’t just because of Lin-sanity — the mind-boggling scoring spree by New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin that has sent the stock price … Read More »
How Much Financial Pain Will Jim Dolan Endure At MSG To Beat Time Warner Cable?
The fear for a lot of investors is that Madison Square Garden Chairman Jim Dolan has too many agendas that will lead him to avoid compromising with Time Warner Cable in their dispute over payments for channels including regional sports powers MSG and MSG+. Madison Square Garden shares fell 1.4% today — a contrast to the overall market which was up about 1.6% — after Dolan yanked the services from Time Warner Cable on New Year’s Day when their carriage contract expired. The companies remain far apart on terms, and don’t even have plans to resume negotiations. That’s a big risk for MSG: Time Warner Cable accounts for about 2.5M MSG subscribers, about a third of its total. The $112M that the cable company pays annually for the channels amounts to about half of Madison Square Garden’s estimated cash flow for its current fiscal year. But execs close to both companies say that Dolan is determined to show that he’s no pushover. The part time blues guitarist knows he’d probably have to kiss MSG’s music channel Fuse goodbye if he allows Time Warner Cable to drop it — something the pay TV company says it wants to do because so few people watch it. Dolan’s main job as CEO of Cablevision gives him an additional incentive to show his moxie. Time Warner Cable has long pined to Read More »
Cablevision Shares Plummet After COO’s Surprise Resignation
You can have your pick of rumors this morning about why COO Tom Rutledge suddenly decided to leave — and what it means for Cablevision’s future. Maybe he had a falling out with Charles and Jim Dolan, who control the No. 7 cable operator (including Verizon and AT&T in the pack). Maybe Rutledge got a better offer to run Charter. Maybe the Dolans decided to try again to take Cablevision private — or to sell the company, logically to Time Warner Cable considering how many adjoining systems the companies have in the New York area. But since nobody really knows, investors are left to fear that the departure of one of the industry’s most respected operators means there’s trouble ahead: Cablevision shares opened down 13%. If that holds, then it would shave about $506M from the company’s market value and take the stock to its lowest point in more than two years. Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce lowered his stock recommendation to “hold” from “buy” — and lowered his short-term price target to $15 from $22 –saying that the news “puts a question mark over Read More »
Cablevision COO Tom Rutledge Resigns; Dolan Family Begins Search For Successor
This is a big, big deal for Cablevision. Tom Rutledge is considered one of the best operators in the cable business — a level-headed guy and fierce competitor who’s equally comfortable handling questions about technology, finance, and marketing. Bernstein … Read More »
Verizon’s Fight To Offer MSG Networks In HD Goes Into Overtime As Cablevision Files Another Appeal
One of cable’s most irksome long-running battles isn’t over yet: Cablevision is appealing an FCC order that requires MSG — which the cable operator controls — to offer HD feeds of its two New York regional sports channels to Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse. That announcement followed a statement from Verizon today saying that it had “a home-team win in overtime” and promising to offer HD versions of MSG and MSG+ in December to FiOS TV customers in all service packages except FiOS TV Local. The HD feeds are a big deal to fans of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, the Buffalo Sabres and the New Jersey Devils.
Cablevision’s appeal continues a dispute that began in 2009 – and that seemed to have reached an end last week. The FCC formally approved a decision from its Media Bureau requiring MSG to deal with FiOS and AT&T, and the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused Cablevision’s request to stay the FCC order. But Cablevision says it is returning to the court for a stay while it seeks a review of the FCC’s orders. “We continue to believe that an unbiased review of the data can only result in one conclusion: that there has been no competitive harm to the nation’s two largest phone companies,” Cablevision says. “In a highly competitive marketplace like New York, a forced sharing of offerings only deters companies from investing and innovating, which hurts both fair competition and consumers.” Read More »
UPDATE: Cablevision Shares Fall Sharply After 3Q Earnings Miss
UPDATE, 8:05 AM: The stock is down more than 13% in early trading, with the decline accelerating after the company’s conference call with analysts. CEO Jim Dolan acknowledged that “not all of our results in the quarter are where we want” — which he says is due in part to the decline in housing growth. But COO Tom Rutledge also said that programming is “the single biggest cost item that we have,” and the company is grappling with new retransmission consent payments to TV stations. “We’re absorbing the collapse of the broadcast industry business model,” he says. For now, the company is waiting to see whether the FCC will do something to help tame those rising costs. It’s also promoting a higher-priced video-phone-broadband package that features faster-than-average Internet speeds. Read More »
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