MORE BREAKING NEWS: Cablevision files SEC Form 8-K

[gutter]

Nobody cares what Charles Egan or Charles Eagan says. The correct spelling is Ergen, and nobody is going to suck on anything.

I apologize if I made it sounded like Charles Ergen of Echostar but it was Tom Eagan of Oppenheimer and Co. I did include the entire link. It seems so odd that people talk like they have sure facts and really talking out of someplace else. (including me) Sorry again but the evalation figure was almost dead on.

 

[Ilya]

Source: Father and son split on Cablevision's direction
(PETER GRANT, The Wall Street Journal, Monday, January 24, 2005)

...

By December, it became clear to many directors that the spinoff wasn't going to work, especially after Morgan Stanley weighed in with its negative report. Lawyers also warned board members of personal liability if they didn't vote in the best interest of shareholders. In a Dec. 20 meeting, the board voted 9 to 4 to bag the spinoff plan and "pursue strategic alternatives," which was widely interpreted on Wall Street to mean Voom was going to be sold or shut down. James Dolan voted against his father.

But Charles Dolan wasn't ready to give up. If the board wasn't going to approve it, he considered changing the makeup of the board. Charles Dolan controls the majority of a special class of stock that the Dolan family owns that elects 75 percent of the directors. He began talking to people about possibly replacing three members of the board who voted against him, Sheila Mahony, a former Cablevision executive; William Bell, a former vice chairman of the company, and investment banker Steven Rattner, according to people familiar with the matter.

But Mr. Dolan was talked out of that plan by his advisers, including lawyers at Debevoise & Plimpton, who warned that in this post-Enron age such a maneuver could cause an uproar, and even lead to delisting. Such a scenario could lead to default on bank covenants and even a possible bankruptcy filing, they warned.

By last week's meeting, all Charles Dolan could do was try to persuade the board to keep funding Voom, which had money only until the end of January. He argued that the board was being oversensitive to the post-Enron regulatory climate. But this time, the vote was close to unanimous against him.

Charles Dolan made one last attempt to save Voom by looking into buying it himself. But that didn't last long and the board quickly agreed to sell to EchoStar, which had been having on-and-off conversations with Cablevision for months.

...

(check the rest of the article: interesting reading!)

 

[Vicki]

Ilya, the rest of article truly was fascinating, and if Voom is still sending signals on 2/1/05, after the funding is supposed to run out, this Prodigal Daughter is tucking her tail firmly between her legs and jumping back onto the ship, which hopefully will be afloat for many years to come!

 

[James Long]

"If VOOM grows to more than 200,000 subscribers in the next 15 months, Eagan put the satellite TV service's valuation per subscriber in the $1,000 to $1,200 range.

Looks like a broken IF THEN statement. Voom isn't going to grow to the 200,000 subscriber level by January 2006. They will be lucky to be on the air in March 2005!

Oh, BTW, $1000 to $1200 is not $1500. That coupled with the REAL count of subscribers reduces the value of that list down quite a bit, even if you grant the $1000 without the 200,000 subscriber level.

JL

 

[rossjudson]

Dish and HD

My first thought upon hearing the news was this: E* knows the limitations of their current sat with respect to HD...they want to achieve rapid leadership in HD, ahead of D*.

By buying the Voom satellite and uplink center, they have a turnkey HD broadcast system, with just about all of the kinks worked out, good and cheap STBs from a well-known provider, a DVR around the corner, and a starting subscriber base of 26,000.

Marketing goes to work selling an all-new E* HD+ service. Yes, if you're an existing E* customer you'll need a new dish, but E* is locking in that customer at higher rates (presumably) over a long term. For existing E* HD customers, bite the bullet and pay for the new install, for them. They'll be eternally grateful. Give them free upgraded HD programming for 3 months, then back to their original subscription. They'll call and buy the upgraded package, and it's one year to payback on the free install.

An upgrading current E* customer keeps everything they have now in terms of channel but now is receiving unbeatable HD capability. E* trashes the Voom originals and condenses the content down to five or six really good HD channels (Rave, Rush, Equator), once again to provide advantage of D*. They can possibly use the spot transmission support to do locals in key markets, and rely on the STB's OTA tuner everywhere else. Remove the SD/HD doubling that Voom inexplicably does and make use of the bandwidth for key locals.

What's not to like about this plan? Ink an agreement with Motorola to ramp up STB product, advertise like crazy (starting in a few months) to your own subscriber base, upselling to the new service.

Your turnkey HD operation can include significant parts of the current Voom technical staff for even faster startup time. Get the HD DVR support off and running, fast, and find a way to make it cost half of what D*'s does...then watch the new subscriptions roll in...

Where's the flaw?

 

[Sean Mota]

testing

 

[Sean Mota]

Where's the flaw?

E* did not buy programming. They bought hardware. They will have to provide their own contracts assuming your theory is correct.

 

[gutter]

Oh, BTW, $1000 to $1200 is not $1500. That coupled with the REAL count of subscribers reduces the value of that list down quite a bit, even if you grant the $1000 without the 200,000 subscriber level.

JL

It is funny how you pick out what you want and ignore the rest like subscribers being worth $1550 per Sub at Dish or Direct. Sure VOOM will be a fire sale but it is still a value not to be sneezed at. Of course you seem desparate to be totally negative. I agree that VOOM will probably go dark but at least I look at the facts and not create them as you do.

 

[calypsocowboy]

There was a post about loosing his job earlier. I've been through the same thing but was one of the survivors. I've seen it in other companies where they trim back quite a bit and then in a year or so they are back to being profitable. Should be an interesting week for sure.

One other note, typically when layoffs happen its a rather quick process as they don't want rogue employees screwing stuff up before they leave where I worked it was all done within a matter of about 4 hours for 800 employees.

 

[James Long]

It is funny how you pick out what you want and ignore the rest like subscribers being worth $1550 per Sub at Dish or Direct.

Exactly. Even if Voom was a "success" at 200,000 customers 15 months down the road their customers would be worth less than D* or E* subs.

Cognative dissonance reigns supreme in this forum. People just cannot believe that V* is going away - even if Cablevision refuses to fund it and the system lost $3k PER SUBSCRIBER in one quarter. I wanted to ask the denizens here how long they are staying, but my poll was deleted. I guess it didn't fit with the topic of the forum - Pro Voom until death does it part.

Keep deluding yourselves. Mental heath experts across the nation look forward to seeing you all .. at $100 per hour.

JL

 

[Lars]

I guess with VOOM being a sponsor that satelliteguys didn't want to ruffle their feathers. I for one don't see anything wrong with that. I personally thought this board is better than most. Hey, the average person on here hates to see VOOM go away. They probably will, but you have to admit VOOM was a great idea just done wrong.

My theory is that VOOM missed the boat with locals and sports. Chuck Dolan probably thought they could grow into it- after all D* and E* didn't start with locals (I know, I was there with D* in 1995). However, what he failed to realize is that joe sixpack now thinks those channels are necessary for a sat company.

 

[rossjudson]

E* didn't buy programming, but Voom's own programming is fairly poor, with a couple of notable exceptions. E* already has contracts with many of the pay channels that it could extend to get their HD versions (it's just more money for HBO, etc). It already has contracts with all the SD channels. With the MPEG-4 upgrade in place they could do spot beams to a number of the larger markets with full HD locals (MPEG-4 doubles bandwidth with same PQ, so there are 80 HD channels. That's 40 new ones, plus you can recover 12-14 more by dumping a good slice of Voom content (assuming E* would want to find "showcase" HD programming to put on the remaining Voom channels. That gives you 50-60 HD local channels you can broadcast...Also, I don't know if the bandwidth is limited on the way up, or on the way down...if spot beams are used more channels might be possible.

The Voom technology really does have the possibility of "doing it all" in a very short time frame, if the right deals are cut and the decisions are made...

 

[riffjim4069]

Maybe E* will provide HD locals and SD programming to VOOM subscribers and VOOM shift their 21 Exclusives over to the SES sat? Maybe E* will handle V* customer service and installation issues. Maybe there is more to this sale than we first suspected. Perhaps I'm nuts, nuts, nuts!

 

[James Long]

I guess with VOOM being a sponsor that satelliteguys didn't want to ruffle their feathers.

The poll could have been seen as positive. The options included:
I'm under commitment - but I'll stay beyond it.
I'll stay as long as I have signal.
I'll wait a couple of months and see what happens.
I'll wait a couple of weeks and see what happens.

As well as the "negative" options:
I'm under commitment - and I'll leave the day I can.
I've already left Voom.

The rabid Voomers would have packed the poll with option 2, but it would have given a place for them to vent instead of filling EVERY thread with I love Voom me-to's like a brain dead AOL'r.

JL

 

[Peter Parker]

The headline is misleading. An 8K isa requirement in this case. There is nothing unusual here.

 

[uboatcmdr]

E* did not buy programming. They bought hardware. They will have to provide their own contracts assuming your theory is correct.

Not only did E* not buy the programing, as far as I have heard they didn't buy the STB's or "soon to be release" (yea right) HD DVR. They just bought the up-link center & satellite.
I have read so many "what if..." or "could it possibly be..." posts in the forums in the past few days it boggles the mind (I even posted a "could it possibly be..." myself), but truth is we will be just about the last to know what is going to happen and all this speculation is not only very redundant it is also rather boring.
Whatever happens, happens. And when something actually does happen, wake me up.

 

[Peter Parker]

Agreed. People have gone a bit too far with th speculation. I understand the tendency to try to "fill in the gaps" when we have incomplete information. But let's recognize it for what it is.

 

[Lobstah]

Amazing how many folks have trouble with that concept

Lob

 

[chickentender]

The rabid Voomers would have packed the poll with option 2, but it would have given a place for them to vent instead of filling EVERY thread with I love Voom me-to's like a brain dead AOL'r.

How many AOL'rs you know came from another dialup or highspeed outfit(read: sat provider or cable company) and stayed because they felt they were getting more? How many?

I don't know any, but I know a metric poop-palette of folks that started out there and stayed because they'd no idea there was anything outside their keyword searches and "Got Mail" wav.

To make a comparison, where did the Voom subscribers come from?? What makes them so rabid? Eh?

 

[James Long]

What makes them so rabid? Eh?

Their inability to grasp the concept that their beloved system is shutting down. It isn't a question of IF, just a question of WHEN.

But the reference was to the way Voomers are posting the I love Voom me-toos in threads intended to discuss topics.

JL