Madison Cable ltd history

A maker of industrial films, he became a pioneer of cable television in 1960 when he began wiring hotels in New York City for reception of his cable news service.

In 1965 Dolan's company, Sterling Manhattan, won a franchise to operate a cable television system in the southern half of Manhattan.

Time bought the Home Box Office (HBO) channel--the first nationwide pay-TV channel in the United States, which Dolan had founded in 1970--from Sterling, and HBO went on to become the leading pay-TV channel in the United States.

The freeze on cable’s development lasted until 1972, when a policy of gradual cable deregulation led to, among other things, modified restrictions on the importation of distant signals.

The 50 miles of cable it had owned in 1973 had grown to 4,000 miles.

By 1980, at about the time the cable industry began receiving significant nationwide attention, Cablevision had 155,000 customers and $14 million of cash flow.

In 1983 Cablevision began offering the Newsday Channel, a 24-hour news and information channel produced in conjunction with the New York newspaper Newsday.

In 1984 Cablevision moved aggressively to win a cable franchise in Boston.

In July 1986 Cablevision agreed to acquire two cable systems from Scripps Howard Inc. for $175 million.

In 1987 Cablevision bought Adams-Russell Co., a cable TV company based in Waltham, Massachusetts.

But with rising interest payments on its significant debt, Cablevision lost $22.6 million in 1988 on sales of $493 million.

Cablevision settled with Gulf & Western in 1989, agreeing to offer the Madison Square Garden Network as an option in its service package, priced and promoted equally to its own Sports Channel.

In February 1990 Cablevision announced it would invest $1 billion with three other media companies in Sky Cable, a direct-broadcast satellite service that was to offer up to 108 channels.

In 1991 the Cablevision and NBC partnership agreed to start a sports-news cable channel.

They also agreed to offer the first pay-per-view Olympics coverage of the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona.

Also in 1993 Cablevision paid about $170 million to gain full control of American Movie Classics, which had been 50 percent owned by Liberty Media.

Also in 1994 the company established Cablevision Lightpath as a competitive local exchange carrier and began serving business customers on Long Island.

In late 1995 James Dolan, son of founder Charles, was named CEO of Cablevision, with the founder remaining chairman.

By the spring of 1998, the number of national cable video networks had grown to 171.

In November of 2000, Madison launched digital cable television service, including an all-digital service option, pay per view capabilities and 50 premium movie channels like HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Starz and Encore.

More than 2 million customers were using cable for their phone connections by mid 2002.

Talks to resolve issues related to “two-way” digital television sets began in 2003 and continue.

Results at the end of the Third Quarter of 2005 provide ample evidence of the growth potential of cable's new position as a broadband provider.

At the start of 2006, cable companies counted a total of about 5 million telephone customers, representing VoIP customers and customers for traditional circuit switched telephone service.

Looking ahead, Madison acquired 700 MHz spectrum in 2008 that can potentially serve various locations in Illinois and Indiana.

In 2010, Madison became a partner in Illinois Network Alliance, a statewide fiber network which provides the company with presence in several major internet exchanges and central offices.