RIP HBO founder Dolan
December 31, 2024
Charles F. Dolan, founder of Home Box Office Inc and several other major media companies, including Cablevision Systems, has died at age 98.
“It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved father and patriarch, Charles Dolan, the visionary founder of HBO and Cablevision,” a family statement said.
Dolan’s legacy includes the 1972 launch of Home Box Office, later known as HBO, and founding Cablevision in 1973 and the American Movie Classics television station in 1984. He also launched News 12 in New York City, the first 24-hour cable channel for local news. The Cleveland native, who dropped out of university, eventually sold Cablevision to Altice of $18 billion in 2016.
Dolan also held controlling stakes in companies that owned Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers. He is survived by six children, 19 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Also passing over the holiday period was Richard Parsons, former chair of Time Warner. Parsons, who died aged 76 of bone cancer, was for many years the highest-ranking African American in any media company, though that was a distinction he frequently played down.
He was thrust into the media limelight in May 2002 when he took over the chairmanship of AOL Time Warner when the company was in free-fall after one of the most infamous mistakes in corporate history: the merger of early internet play AOL with traditioanl media company Time Warner.