founder of HBO, AMC, and Cablevision was 98

Charles F. Dolan, the pioneer and businessman who founded HBO in the early 1970s, merged a group of Long Island cable TV systems into Cablevision, and later created the channel AMC, has died. 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,” a spokesperson for Dolan’s family said in a statement provided to Entertainment Weekly on Saturday. “Mr. Dolan, aged 98, passed away peacefully from natural causes, surrounded by his loved ones.”

They continued, “We is remembered as both a trailblazer in the television industry and a devoted family man, and his legacy will live on.”

A Cleveland native born Oct. 16, 1926, Dolan would become a TV maven in the 1960s, when he created the nation’s first urban cable television network, Sterling Manhattan Cable. From there, he sought a way to offset the cost of wiring the densely populated boroughs of New York City, which led him to create a network offering feature-length, ad-free movies to subscribers who paid extra to view them.

The network was originally dubbed The Green Channel, Dolan explained in a 2013 oral history of the creation of HBO, but that soon changed as the idea evolved.

“There was a discussion, and the first idea was, ‘Well, let’s call it The Home Box'” Dolan recalled. “Then somebody said, ‘Well, if it’’s Home Box and we’re selling movies, why don’t we make it the Home Box Office?’ That’s what it became, and it didn’t take long for that to convert to HBO. Everybody liked that name, and that was the beginning of it.”

HBO’s 1972 launch became the blueprint for premium channels, presenting live events, sports, and movies without commercial interruptions in exchange for a monthly fee. Though consumers would begin turning to cable as their preferred TV experience, the business initially struggled, and by 1974 Time Inc. bought out Dolan’s stake in HBO. 

Following that sale, the mogul would make his fortune with Cablevision, which he founded in 1973. The company offered service in Long Island and New York City before expanding to markets including Boston, Cleveland, and Chicago. Dolan completed the sale of Cablevision to Altice for $17.7 billion in 2016. 

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Dolan also founded the cable channel American Movie Classics (AMC) in 1984, and in 1986 he launched News 12, the first 24-hour cable channel for local news. The billionaire businessman 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 was also the founder and chairman of the Lustgarten Foundation, the world’s largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research.

He is survived by his six children, 19 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. His wife of 73 years, Helen Ann, died in August 2023 at 96.