E* is now part-owner of Voom 21HD channels

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Alto101

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Jan 15, 2005
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I decided to listen to the first quarter earnings call for Cablevision to see what they would say about this subject. Here is what was said (not word for word), Rainbow signed the first carriage agreement for the Voom HD channels with Echostar last week and E* will carry 10 of the Voom HD channels immediately and add the remaining 11 channels by early 2006. Here is the interesting part....the carriage agreement also included a minority equity interest for E*.

So E* is now part-owner of the Voom HD channels - they did not specify the percentage.

If you want to hear this part, go to cablevision's website and do a replay of the 1st Quarter Earnings call. This topic came up around the 56 minute mark according to the replay player.

I wonder how this minority equity agreement will effect other providers. Will E* try to keep these channels exclusive to E* by paying more money to Rainbow? I wish I could see the details of the agreement in writing :D
 
Very innteresting.....sneaky little E*....never revealing the whole story! ;)
 
Now that is news you didn't hear anywhere else. Wow! And all along they said that they didn't want to own VOOM or even carry any of the channels until they had MPEG4 in place. Can you believe anything or ever take Charlie at his word? In this case, I am glad to say...no.
 
Sean Mota said:
There has to be some public document with the SEC to give you more detail about this....
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One of the callers asked a question about this agreement and Cablevision replied that this agreement is not being made public.
 
Still listening to the conference call.

A caller wanted to know when Cablevision would carry the Voom HD channels on their cable network, the reply was that they are looking at this and plan on doing it, but no firm plans yet.
 
Charlie has just confirmed on the EchoStar conference call that E* has a small equity in VOOM, but no control.

The 21 channels and MPEG-4 are expected early 2006.
 
Conference call over. Not much else to report except that the contracts that Voom DBS had entered into are still being looked at to determine how much it will cost Cablevision to terminate. I personally hope that it costs Cablevision a huge amount of money to break these contracts :p

Also, Rainbow has no plans on adding any additional channels to the Voom HD lineup since they feel that the package is already complete. They also do not have an estimated break-even date for these channels.
 
Alto101 said:
They also do not have an estimated break-even date for these channels.
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It's probably a year and a half from May 1, 2005 :D If they aren't carried by any other providers before then, Chuck and little Jimmy will get in another pissing contest and shut 'er down.

Larry the Cable Guy : Git er done!
Jimmy the Putz : Shut er down! :D
 
Might see the amount paid for and/or shares owned of VoOm in the second quarter report for E* or CV but that is 4 mos from now. ugggg... it's so frustrating. Now I see why Chuck pulled his petition over the E-for-Rainbow deal. Come to think of it he back-pedaled real fast over the past few weeks. I wonder how much he might have got on the side. It was said that the deal would not be made public...right? hmmm Maybe a discount for options in E*. WOW! The more I think about it Charles Dolan backed way up. Just how much did he get when he looked the other way with HBO and TW years ago? This is looking like we has seen this before.

-scott
 
I read elsewhere that Dish will be the exclusive distributor for the Voom channels, that should keep Dish customers on top eh. :yes
 
Seems to be Charlies MO now. He took a partial equity interest in G4TechTV when it was sold to Comcast as well.

Guess its just another way to compete with News Corp
 
Stargazer said:
It may keep Dish on top for a little while until DirecTv gets those satellites up.
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If Charlie Ergen has the opportunity to successfully seal more "exclusive distribution" deals, then it won't matter how many satellites DirecTV has, they won't have access to the content to transmit.

Reminds me of all the dark fiber optics cable that is currently lying in the ground throughout the country.
 
GEBrown said:
If Charlie Ergen has the opportunity to successfully seal more "exclusive distribution" deals, then it won't matter how many satellites DirecTV has, they won't have access to the content to transmit.

Reminds me of all the dark fiber optics cable that is currently lying in the ground throughout the country.
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Anyone know how much Fiber optic has been installed and how much has to be done?
 
GEBrown said:
If Charlie Ergen has the opportunity to successfully seal more "exclusive distribution" deals, then it won't matter how many satellites DirecTV has, they won't have access to the content to transmit.

Reminds me of all the dark fiber optics cable that is currently lying in the ground throughout the country.
Click to expand...

If it was an "exclusive distribution deal" don't you think you would have heard about it.

i.e "InHD only on Cable"
"NFL Sunday Ticket only on Directv"

"Voom programming only on Dishnetwork." Haven't heard that one.
The Dolans would be foolish to limit their HD programming to one carrier.
 
E* Trumps D*

I don't think Charlie Ergen is quaking in his boots over DirecTv's future satellite launches. D* chose to go for the HD locals......which are nice. Charlie decided to take another path towards attracting you HD afficianados. He made the wiser move in my opinion by first gobbling up as many HD channels as he could. He'll address HD locals coming through the dish later.

The D* satellites will give a customer around four HD local channels in his/her market in addition to D*'s current five channel HD package.

Charlie went and tripled his HD offering in one day and plans to add even more in the coming months.

I don't see any posts from you guys saying, "Gee, I'm going to hold off on signing up for E* because D* will give me my locals in HD sometime in '05 or '06."

Advantage: Charlie
 
Charlie went and tripled his HD offering in one day and plans to add even more in the coming months.
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A couple months? LOL. Supposedly the rest ,if I read correctly, wont show till 2006 and mpeg4. By my reckoning thats over 1/2 yr away at mnimum.

If I see one more "This thread needs to be moved" comment from a certain someone Im gonna go postal
 
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