EchoStar Does, Indeed, Buy Voom -- Cablevision In-Fighting Could Mean Trouble

from the as-expected... dept

While it's been rumored for about a month, it looks like EchoStar has agreed to buy Cablevision's Voom satellite TV offering that has been a big money pit for the company. There's a bit of irony in this deal, in that the whole reason Voom came about in the first place was EchoStar's desire for a competitor to prove to the FCC that there would be no antitrust violation if they bought DirecTV. Apparently, the decision to sell Voom was a contentious one within the Dolan family who owns Cablevision. Some members of the family made a last ditch effort to buy the division themselves but that didn't work out. Now, the speculation is that the family in-fighting is going to force the family to sell off Cablevision completely. That might be unfortunate. While, like any cable provider, there are plenty of people who are not fans of Cablevision, the company has been more innovative than other cable providers. They were one of the first to offer cable broadband service (and they built their own rather than going through @Home like everyone else), and, more recently they've been fairly innovative in completely giving away VoIP, in order to keep customers signed up for TV and broadband service.
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  • identicon
    Chomper, 21 Jan 2005 @ 8:38am

    No Subject Given

    Cablevision's Optimum Online service is one thing I will say they do better than anyone else. The service RARELY goes down and the speeds blow away DSL and other services.

    While I wish it weren't so expensive, they still do a better job than others.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    James Ramapo, 21 Jan 2005 @ 9:52am

    Cablevision

    These guys are the worst, especially the Dolan's. Have you seen how they manged the Knicks! I hope Cablevision goes under too, it's the first bright sign in the year that things are finally going in the right direction.

    Cablevision digital cable service has on screen menus that are out of the early 90's. This is very sad and I'm just fortunate they don't operate in my area of NYC.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Beck, 21 Jan 2005 @ 11:33am

    Sprint Training Soon

    Good. Maybe the Dolans can use some of that cash to put the Indians back into the playoffs.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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