Cablevision: Charles Dolan's Oscar Blackout and the West Side Stadium War

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

On March 7, 2010, Cablevision customers in the New York area tuned to ABC for the 82nd Academy Awards and got a black screen during a fee dispute with Disney. The company traces to Charles Dolan, who built Sterling Manhattan Cable, launched Home Box Office, sold both to Time Life and founded Cablevision on Long Island in 1973. After a 1980s national expansion to almost three million subscribers in 19 states, Dolan swapped systems in Boston, Cleveland and elsewhere with TCI and MediaOne to concentrate on the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut region.

Cablevision then bought content and local businesses: a stake in Madison Square Garden in 1994, later full control, with the Knicks, Rangers and their regional networks, plus Rainbow Media (later AMC Networks), The Wiz electronics stores, Clearview Cinemas and Newsday for $650 million. It dropped Food Network and HGTV in a January 2010 dispute with Scripps, lost Fox during NFL games and part of the World Series that October, and kept the YES Network off for a year. In 2004 and 2005, to protect Madison Square Garden, it fought Mayor Michael Bloomberg's West Side stadium with tens of millions in ads and a roughly $400 million bid for the MTA rail yards.

• During blackouts, Cablevision force-tuned cable boxes to its own channel looping messages about the dispute.
• The stadium, planned for the Jets and New York's 2012 Olympic bid, died when state politicians refused subsidies, and London won the Games.
• Cablevision boycotted the NFL Network until 2012 and stalled Verizon Fios access to HD feeds of its sports networks.
• It spun off Madison Square Garden in 2010 and AMC Networks in 2011.
• In 2016 Altice bought the core cable business for $17.7 billion, and the service continues under the Optimum brand.