Charles Dolan, the Cove Neck telecommunications pioneer who pioneered cable television by founding Cablevision Systems Corporation and HBO, businesses that made him a billionaire, has died at 98.
Charles Dolan PHOTO: X
At the time, he was selling special programs to hotels through his Teleguide service, while cable TV was taking off in rural areas.
In 1964, Dolan struck a deal with New York City to wire buildings in Manhattan, and a few years later, hoping to attract viewers, he struck a deal to televise playoff games between the Knicks and Rangers on cable, according to Variety , writes bbc.com.
He then went on to create Home Box Office for movies, and later sold both his cable service and HBO to build Cablevision, which came to provide television and Internet to households in the northeastern United States.
In 2015, the Dolan family sold Cablevision to European company Altice for nearly $18 billion.
By then, Dolan’s son James was running what the New York Times called the family empire.
According to the New York Times, the Dolans had become “the family New Yorkers often love to hate”due to frustration with the Knicks’ team performances and disputes with television networks over their schedules, which threatened to prevent customers from watching the Oscars and the World Series.
The Dolan family was worth $5.4 billion at the time of his death, according to Forbes.
