kfried001 said:The letter of intent, negotiated by independent Cablevision directors, is subject to a definitive agreement by Feb. 28, Cablevision said.
A source said the Dolans won’t pay cash for the assets. Rather, they’ll assume Voom’s liabilities.
“For Cablevision, the transaction will allow it to avoid various shutdown costs and other liabilities of the Voom service which it would have incurred had it proceeded with its original plan to shut down the service,” Cablevision said in a prepared statement.
Charles Dolan has been a passionate advocate for Voom since the DBS service debuted in 2003, despite skepticism from Wall Street, Cablevision’s board, and even his own son, Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan. Voom has been a drag on Cablevision’s stock, and some observers said last week that Dolan’s fixation on Voom suggests he may finally sell the company’s prized New York City-area cable systems.
Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Richard Greenfield said in a research note that the deal “clearly shows Chuck Dolan’s obsession with Voom and his complete lack of interest in the core cable business, which could indicate a willingness to sell the cable assets.”
Greenfield also said it would be smart for Time Warner Cable to abandon a plan to buy Adelphia Communications Corp. with Comcast Corp. and pursue Cablevision’s metropolitan New York systems and its 2.3 million subscribers instead.
While Tom Dolan said in a prepared statement that Voom HD is happy to have a deal that “will permit us to continue Voom’s state-of-the-art service for its customers,” The Carmel Group analyst Jimmy Schaeffler said be believes the Dolans may eventually shut down Voom, and make a business of licensing Voom’s original HDTV networks to other distributors.
“Voom may decide, 'The hell with infrastructure — let’s focus on HD content. Let’s keep building those assets, and let’s become the arms-supply merchant to the whole industry,’ ” Schaeffler said.
If the Dolans continue to operate Voom, EchoStar might resist leasing it the satellite space to power the service.
But Schaeffler said Voom could also turn to Dominion Video Satellite to lease satellite space.
Voom also is buying wireless licenses that Rainbow DBS affiliate company DTV Norwich acquired in the Federal Communications Commission’s Multichannel Video and Distribution Data Service auction last year for $84.6 million. The Dolans could use those wireless assets to deliver Voom’s HDTV channels, but it would require a huge capital outlay to construct wireless towers and deploy equipment needed to receive the signals.
Cablevision investors cheered the agreement, sending the MSO’s stock price up 89 cents, to $27.48, by Friday afternoon.
BobMurdoch said:Analysts like companies with sound business models. They don't have problems with companies that are losing money IF they are ramping up nicely towards a sustainable business model. V* does NOT have one right now. I'm happy that it look slike Mr. Dolan is willing to risk $1 Billion of his own money to keep it going. I don't have a problem with that (Mark Cuban is also losing money on HDNet but at a much smaller scale). I just have a problem signing up for a service that can't convince more than 520 people PER STATE to sign up for the service. So basically, each state on average can fit all their V* subscribers into one semi-large movie theater. UNLESS they can add at least two zeroes to the end of that subscriber count, the business is going nowhere without massive subsidies which no independent investor will provide. Charlie Dolan is obsessed with V*, but that doesn't mean it is a good business decision.
Once again, congrats on kicking the executioner out of the area for the time being.... I just can't see how this is going to be a permanent fix.
No flames coming your way, man....Lobstah said:This post is almost funny.
And before getting flamed, I'm not one of the people here that's obsessed with VOOM. I like the content, and have had no problems with the service. In other words, it has met my expectations and has delivered what they commited to deliver.
Lob
BobMurdoch said:Hey, here's a scenario that I'd love to see (and I'd become a V* subscriber to boot). Figure out a way so that my dish pointed at 61.5 can pick up the channels and I'll sign up tomorrow assuming I can maintain my E* account. I don't know the technical limitations, but E* was able to make Sirius work for them so who knows.......
...and that is where the "onesies" and "twosies" may come in! Don't count it out, word of mouth has built mountains before!!BobMurdoch said:...UNLESS they can add at least two zeroes to the end of that subscriber count, the business is going nowhere without massive subsidies which no independent investor will provide. Charlie Dolan is obsessed with V*, but that doesn't mean it is a good business decision.
Once again, congrats on kicking the executioner out of the area for the time being.... I just can't see how this is going to be a permanent fix.
Minsk1 said:The only thing that bothers me are your anti V* posts. But maybe it will help to see the bright side for yourself.
BobMurdoch said:Once again, congrats on kicking the executioner out of the area for the time being.... I just can't see how this is going to be a permanent fix.
BobMurdoch said:Lemme give this one a whirl with all due respect to the honorable crustacean who responded to my post.......
1. The basic plan of any business is to make money.
Don't really care about all this "Bus 101" stuff. We already know this, and I still don't see where it has any impact on becoming a customer.
Add in the fact that in the post Enron era, shareholders are getting litigious and pursuing judicial action (ie. lawsuits) when they feel that their executives' "fidiciary responsibilty" is not being met.
Who cares? Is VOOM publicly traded? This just doesn't matter.
the bottom line is that a measly 26,000 subscribers are signed up.
Again with this? Doesn't matter.
For a billion dollar investment they have secured 0.026% of the multichannel TV market after a year and a half based on 100 Million TV watching households.
One more time, doesn't matter. If you like the content, subscribe...if you don't, don't.
Laserdiscs were considered a colossal failure and they managed to capture 5% of the market at their peak which is 200 times LARGER than the market share V* has. Worse still, churn 4-5 times the level of D* and E* siphons off the people they do manage to attract to the service.
Again...lol...WHO CARES? This has nothing to do with VOOM, or Dolan
2. Basing choices on popularity.... Yes, I do base my choices on popularity. Sony's Beta format had superior picture quality and smaller size but failed when they tried to attain market dominance over the then burgeoning VCR market.
Sorry, but this isn't a valid analogy...you don't have to buy anything to get VOOM. So it's not like you're going to get stuck with a $500 boat anchor.
Bottom line, if they don't achieve critical mass, they stop growing and die, leaving you with a brick. Not bad if you leased the box, bad if you shelled out $500 for it.
Same response as above. This has nothing to do with VOOM, you don't buy anything.[/B]
3. Re: caring about subsidies - you got me there. If it only costs you a buck, go for it.
[B]This is exactly my point.
4. Other than the hardcore fan V* subscribers, no unbiased independent analyst or investment entity thinks that the business plan will work.
So how many investors have seen the new business plan? You don't know. In fact, you probably don't know if it's even been shown to anyone, so why are you making this statement? It's patently false. If you said "the OLD business plan", that would be one thing, but then that doesn't fit this scenario, because it's no longer applicable.
Charlie Dolan either is obsessed with proving his vision right, or the critics' naysaying wrong.
I don't think you really know what he may or may not be obsessed with[/B].
He has a right to do whatever he wants with his own money. Paul Allen, who made his billions of of Microsoft has poured buckets of money into ventures that never panned out, but that were important to his vision of the "future".
Interesting example. He's lost millions and millions on Charter, my cable service. Are you in the Charter forum explaining to the poor unfortunates there that Paul Allen is obsessed? [/B]
He is free to do with his money what he wants. Since he now seems to be less enamored with transferring assets to his children through an inheritance (at least the one who crossed him), he will have to sell assets to provide collateral to continue to fund the losses.
Amazing that I keep saying this. How do you know this? Did you help him re-write his will? You don't know what he's enamored with and what he's not...why do you keep making this stuff up?
QUOTE]
Have to say...I just can't understand why you keep beating on the business plan that you know nothing about, Dolan's intentions, which you know nothing about, and what he's going to do with his money?
Lob
It's fascinating to watch Dolan maneuver on VOOM. All of your intellect tells you that he can't succeed against what looks like insurmountable odds (high churn, overwhelming cost/subscriber loss ratio, entrenched competition, ...), but in the back of your mind, there's that "What if?".Lobstah said:... Have to say...I just can't understand why you keep beating on the business plan that you know nothing about, Dolan's intentions, which you know nothing about, and what he's going to do with his money?
Lob
mdonnelly said:I'm really looking forward to watching the drama unfold.