Cablevision is spending more money to retain subscribers and while the cost is high, they did report sub gains while other operators posted sub losses. But their low cost pricing strategy and high marketing costs were not kind to the bottom line as profit and cash flow dropped. The result perhaps of a strategy that former leadership chose not to follow and thus have been departing from the team.
Cablevision, once known as both a programmer and distributor, has been spinning off assets to concentrate itself as a pure play cable operator. First came the spin off of MSG Network, followed close behind by Rainbow Networks, renamed AMC Networks. And now comes word that its Clearview Cinema movie chain is being pushed out next. "Chief Financial Officer Gregg Seibert said on a conference call that the company planned to explore strategic alternatives with its Clearview Cinemas movie theater chain, which had 45 theaters in the New York tri-state area including the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City."
For a company that once owned Nobody Beats The Wiz stores, today's Cablevision is looking quite different. Will Newsday be the next asset to be discarded? And is all this being done to make Cablevision easier for selling it to another cable operator? All I know is that there is always something interesting going on at Cablevision.
