History
Cablevision was founded by Charles Dolan in 1973. In the mid-1960s, Dolan had already built a cable system called Sterling Manhattan Cable in the borough of Manhattan and launched Home Box Office (HBO). He ended up selling both the cable system and HBO to Time Life Inc. With the money he gained from the sale, he started a new cable system in suburban Long Island forming Cablevision. Cablevision quickly expanded and built system throughout the New York metro area expanding into New Jersey, Westchester County, Connecticut, and the other boroughs of New York City.
In the 1980s, Cablevision also expanded into the Chicago, Boston, and Cleveland areas. By the mid-1990s Cablevision would offer service to 2.9 million subscribers in 19 states. Through a series of transactions in the late 1990s, Cablevision decided to consolidate their cable systems into three core areas: New York, Cleveland, and Boston. Despite reducing the number of areas served they were able to bring the number of subscribers to 3.5 million through these transactions. One major transaction made at this time was with Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI). Cablevision gained 10 New York area cable systems from TCI and in exchange TCI gained 33% ownership in the company. In 1999, AT&T Corporation took over TCI thus giving them the one-third ownership in Cablevision. In 2000, Cablevision sold-off its remaining systems outside of the New York area in Boston, Cleveland, and Kalamazoo, Michigan to Media One, Adelphia, and Charter Communications respectively. AT&T sold its share of Cablevision in 2001.
On June 13, 2010, Cablevision announced that it would acquire Bresnan Communications for $1.37 billion. Bresnan provides service to about 308,000 cable subscribers in Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. This is the first time in a decade that Cablevision has owned systems outside of the New York area (although Bresnan, like Cablevision, had its headquarters in the New York City suburbs). In May 2011, Cablevision rebranded the Bresnan systems as Optimum West.
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