If Charles Dolan had by no means taken an curiosity in media, different enterprise leaders and entrepreneurs would have discovered a option to harness the ability of expertise and the humanities to put the muse for the pay tv market. However Dolan received there first.

The legendary founding father of HBO and Cablevision, who died Dec. 28 on the age of 98, was the definition of a visionary and a pioneer. He acknowledged the potential of what wired TV service – in distinction to over the air broadcasts of native TV and radio stations – may carry to customers. Within the Nineteen Sixties, Dolan noticed the market demand for premium leisure and sports activities, lengthy earlier than anybody ever paid a month-to-month cable invoice.

John Malone, the Liberty Media chairman who was a peer of Dolan within the Seventies, ‘80s and ‘90s because the CEO of cable big Tele-Communications Inc., paid tribute to his colleague of a half-century.

“For over 50 years, I had the privilege of figuring out Chuck Dolan as a companion, vendor, co-director, investor, buyer and pal,” Malone instructed Selection in a press release. “His sensible entrepreneurship helped construct the cable business and led the creation of nice companies in sports activities, leisure and media.”

Past his talent in enterprise, Malone highlighted the mix of integrity and derring-do that it took for Dolan to drive alternative not only for his personal enterprise pursuits however for the nascent cable business itself.

“The world wants extra folks like Chuck who’re keen to take dangers, to innovate and to do issues in their very own method — with out concern for the best way folks assume it needs to be carried out,” Malone mentioned. “A greater human being doesn’t exist. We are going to miss him.”

Pals and colleagues pointed to Dolan’s endless drive to innovate and to launch companies. He crafted the American Film Classics channel in 1984, and he helped launch Bravo across the identical time.

Josh Sapan, former CEO of AMC Networks, which stays managed by the Dolan household, labored carefully with Charles Dolan for greater than 30 years as a senior programming govt. Sapan famous that Dolan deserves credit score for launching the primary regional cable sports activities community, popping out of Madison Sq. Backyard, and later regional cable information channels by way of Cablevision’s News12 group.

“Chuck embraced the inevitably of change with a wildly clear image of what can be subsequent,” Sapan instructed Selection. “He was at all times inventing — by no means emulating.”

Dolan was the type of boss who lets others benefit from the limelight – which might be why his function as an architect of the fashionable TV market is underappreciated, even amongst business insiders.

“Chuck enthusiastically took up what was new and subsequent even when it meant incurring on present enterprise — and he did all of it with a wit and a quiet generosity that allowed others to shine,” Sapan noticed.

In enterprise, Dolan was formidable however by no means unreasonable. After launching HBO, he left the corporate early on and turned his focus to constructing Cablevision right into a powerhouse cable operator serving suburban households on Lengthy Island. The depth of Dolan’s understanding of all elements of the cable enterprise was essential to its progress.

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Jeff Bewkes, the previous Time Warner CEO who additionally headed HBO for years, received to know his predecessor working throughout the desk from him on carriage offers for HBO and different Time Warner channels with Cablevision. As a real father of cable, Dolan introduced a singular perspective to the negotiating desk.

“He was not anyone’s thought of a pushover. He was honest and affordable. However he knew he was concerned in a nascent business,” Bewkes instructed Selection. “He knew when you’ve got a take-no-prisoners perspective in negotiating, you’re going to kill the business. He was pragmatic that method. He knew how fragile the programming facet of the business was and he didn’t need it to break down.”

What’s extra, “Chuck’s handshake was good for a deal,” Bewkes recalled. “Many instances, we’d stroll away [from negotiations] with a handshake and Chuck lived as much as it.”

For Dolan, the spark that led to the launch of Dwelling Field Workplace in 1972 was his expertise working in New York with Sterling Tv. Sterling had acquired the TV syndication firm that Dolan and his spouse of 73 years, Helen Dolan, began out of their residence in Cleveland within the early Fifties.

The couple then relocated to New York, and Dolan launched an industrial movies division for Sterling. And that led him to arrange a cope with a clutch of high-end New York resorts to supply motion pictures and informational content material by way of closed circuit TV that was designed to succeed in vacationers and convention-goers. Dolan took be aware of how usually his shoppers commented on the power of the image high quality on the lodge TV service compared to that of the native TV stations. That planted the seeds for 2 massive concepts.

On the time, cable TV-like providers have been beginning to pop up in rural areas of the nation the place radio and TV broadcast alerts have been laborious to obtain. Nascent cable providers have been fashioned to permit these households to have higher image high quality for present stations. Dolan realized that massive cities resembling New York additionally had demand for improved image high quality due to skyscrapers and different massive obstructions that interfered with reception. And he noticed that there was a starvation for extra programming than could possibly be discovered on the time on the restricted variety of regionally oriented channels within the broadcast universe.

All through his lengthy profession, Dolan earned the respect and friendship of many rivals. Ralph Roberts, a fellow cable pioneer and founding father of Comcast, was certainly one of them, recollects Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast and a son of Ralph. Ralph Roberts died in 2015 at age 95.

“Chuck Dolan was in each sense a visionary and the business would look nothing like it’s immediately with out his creativity, ardour and dedication,” Brian Roberts instructed Selection. “He was a singular and wonderful gentleman. Chuck and my dad shared the great journey that has been the cable business for six many years. He might be missed certainly.”

Early on in its improvement stage, the channel that turned Dwelling Field Workplace was dubbed “the Inexperienced Channel.” Dolan is alleged to have envisioned it as being akin to a video Macy’s, or a TV division retailer with a bit of one thing for everybody.

After years of planning and some false begins, Dolan’s Sterling Tv and its companion, Time Inc. , launched Dwelling Field Workplace on Nov. 8, 1972. The whole viewers on the time may have slot in a highschool auditorium. HBO was acquired by all of 365 properties in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. – a main spot for early cable as a result of the native topography made it laborious for residents to choose up broadcast alerts from Philadelphia or New York. The primary wave of HBO subscribers paid an additional $6 a month for the premium service.

HBO’s first evening of programming consisted of a New York Rangers hockey sport introduced dwell from Madison Sq. Backyard, which proved to be foreshadowing to the late Nineties when Cablevision acquired management of the staff (plus the New York Knicks) and the venue. The NHL sport was adopted by an uncut airing of the 1971 Paul Newman-Henry Fonda drama “Generally A Nice Notion.” That title definitely was prescient.

“Charles Dolan was a visionary artistic, a rare enterprise chief and an important pal whose creation of HBO perpetually modified the standard and status of storytelling on tv,” mentioned David Zaslav, CEO of HBO mother or father firm Warner Bros. Discovery. “His impression continues to be felt immediately at HBO, Warner Bros. Discovery and throughout our whole business.”

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From the Selection Archives

A narrative from the Nov. 17, 1982, version of weeky Selection revisits HBO’s humble beginnings because the service marked the tenth anniversary of its launch.