Charles Dolan dies at 98: Billionaire founder of HBO, Cablevision leaves exceptional legacy in media and entertainment

“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 statement reads.

Charles Dolan’s career

Dolan’s career began when he was just 26, in New York City in 1952. He founded Sterling Manhattan Cable in 1962, which is known to have exclusive agreements with New York pro-sports teams, including the Knicks and the Rangers. The Air Force veteran established Home Box Office in 1972, which is now commonly known as HBO. He founded Cablevision the following year.

In an interview with the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication in 2018, Dolan opened up about the concept of HBO. He said that the idea grew out of a more limited service that his company assembled to distribute movies to high-end hotels in New York. While the channel first launched in 1971 as the Green Channel, it was relaunched in 1972 as Home Box Office after Dolan and his partners got an investment from Time Inc.

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

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

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