Charles Dolan Dies: Cable Pioneer Who Founded HBO & Cablevision Was 98

Charles Dolan, a cable pioneer and patriarch of the Dolan family, which controls media companies, entertainment venues and sports teams, died Dec. 28 of natural causes, Newsday reported. He was 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,” the family said in a statement to Newsday, once co-owned by Charles Dolan and his son Patrick who now owns it.

Charles Dolan is known for founding HBO in 1972 and a year later creating Cablevision, one of the nation’s largest cable operators, which was sold to Altice in 2017 for $17.7 billion. In 1986, he was instrumental in Cablevision’s launch of News 12 Long Island, the first 24-hour regional cable news channel in the U.S. It spawned the News 12 Networks group of local news channels in the New York area.

In 2020, Charles Dolan stepped down as executive chairman of the board of directors of AMC Networks, which had been spun out from Cablevision into a separate public company in 2011.

The Dolan family, whose net worth is estimated at $5.4 billion, has a controlling stake in Madison Square Garden through which it also owns Radio City Music Hall, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers.