Charles Dolan dies at 98: the billionaire founder of HBO and Cablevision leaves an exceptional legacy in media and entertainment

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved father and patriarch, Charles Dolan, the visionary founder of HBO and Cablevision,” the statement reads.

The career of Charles Dolan.

Dolan’s career began when he was just 26 years old, in new york city in 1952. He founded Sterling Manhattan Cable in 1962, which is known for having exclusive agreements with New York professional sports teams, including the Knicks and Rangers. The Air Force veteran founded Home Box Office in 1972, which is now commonly known as HBO. He founded Cablevisión the following year.

In an interview with the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2018, Dolan talked about the concept of HBO. He said the idea came from a more limited service his company created to distribute movies to luxury hotels in New York. While the channel first launched in 1971 as Green Channel, it was relaunched in 1972 as Home Box Office after Dolan and his partners obtained an investment from Time Inc.

“We later found out that hotel people were telling us that the image we were giving their guests in the hotel rooms was far superior to the image they were getting from the television stations from all the regular television programming,” Dolan told Annenberg. . “That made us think, ‘Well, maybe we can be useful not only to our customers and the hotels, but also to the residents of Manhattan.’ So we went back to town and said, ‘Can we have a franchise to provide better television service to the residents?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ And they gave us a franchise to serve Manhattan residents as far north as 89th Street on one side of the city and 72nd Street on the other side of the city. “That was the beginning.”

Dolan’s family has a net worth of around $5.4 billion, according to Forbes. He founded News12 in New York City, which was the first 24-hour local news cable channel in the United States.

Dolan is survived by six children, 19 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Helen Ann Dolan, his wife, died last year.