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Charles Dolan testifies about cable TV programming, awards and competition in March 2023. (Still framed via C-SPAN broadcast)
Charles Dolan, the founder of Cablevision Systems who also paved the way for the launch of HBO, AMC Networks and MSG Networks, died Saturday at the age of 98.
A spokesperson for Dolan’s family said his death was of natural causes and that he was “surrounded by his loved ones.”
“Remembered as a pioneer in the television industry and a dedicated family man, his legacy will live on,” the spokesperson said.
Dolan helped wire the first cable television system in the New York City area, then called Sterling Manhattan Cable. The system had local broadcast agreements to broadcast games played by the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York Rangers hockey club. The Manhattan cable system was later sold to Time; Dolan turned his attention to a similar cable system covering Long Island, which became Cablevision.
Over the years, Cablevision has spun off some of its assets, including MSG Networks and AMC Networks. The service was sold to Altice USA in 2016.
Sterling had big ideas early on for commercial-free television on his cable system and wanted to create the “Macy’s of television,” according to his newspaper obituary. Wall Street Journal. That came in the early 1970s with the development of what was then called the ‘Green Channel’, later renamed Home Box Office or HBO. The channel launched in November 1972 with a live broadcast of a National Hockey League (NHL) game between the Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks from Madison Square Garden.
HBO expanded its footprint by becoming the first pay-TV channel with an uplink to satellite, allowing it to secure national distribution via large backyard C-Band dishes and making it easier for regional cable headends to pick up the service.
In 1973, Dolan built on his early success at HBO by launching a regional sports network called SportsChannel, which eventually became MSG Networks. Four years later, he founded Rainbow Media Holdings, which launched the Independent Film Channel (IFC), Bravo (later sold to what became Comcast’s NBC Universal), and AMC. MSG Networks and CableVision eventually gained control of Madison Square Garden, the home arena of the Knicks and Rangers. AMC Networks was formed into a separate company in 2011; MSG Networks is now part of Sphere Entertainment.
