Cablevision Makes Newsday Latest Buy
After winning the Sundance Channel, the cable operator trumped Murdoch for Newsday. Is The Weather Channel in the forecast?
May 12, 2008
Cablevision has been outbidding pretty much everyone as of late. First, the Dolan family won the Sundance Channel for just under $500 million, and next, the company-owned New York Knicks outbid other franchises for the head coaching services of Mike D’Antoni, a prized replacement for despised and deposed coach Isiah Thomas. Monday, Cablevision’s scored its latest victory by agreeing to buy Tribune Co.'s Long Island newspaper Newsday, one-upping the owners of both the New York Post and New York Daily News with a $650 million bid for the daily tabloid.
Cablevision is not a print-heavy operation, and beat out two New York media organizations that would benefit from synergies with the Long Island print asset. But the media conglomerate nonetheless has synergies of its own.
Cablevision can use Newsday to support its Long Island local news channel’s content. Its cable service can also be tethered to its print operations for sales synergies — Long Islanders make up about three million subscribers to its cable package. The Federal Communications Commission last year voted to relax rules restricting cross-ownership of television and newspaper properties within the same market.
Now, having spent north of $1 billion in about a week’s time, it remains unclear whether Cablevision will be capable of remaining in the fight to buy Landmark Communications’ Weather Channel, an asset valued at up to $4 billion. Other competitors include GE’s NBC Universal and, of course, the omnipresent Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
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