James Dolan

After a trip to Tiananmen Square, Times columnist Harvey Araton wrote about the media policy for reporters covering the Knicks that the Observer chronicled back in November (quick refresher: reporters were restricted from speaking to a player or an MSG employee without a P.R. person present with a BlackBerry in hand to take notes).

On a trip to Tiananmen organized by the Main Press Center for the Olympics, Mr. Araton learned of a newly installed rule:

On the bus, the project manager of the news desk at the Main Press Center, Wu Kun, aka Roy, announced that there was a new system in place for conducting interviews inside Tiananmen.

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Newsday, you're free of Sam Zell!

The $650 million transaction that has brought the Long Island daily into the hands of Charles and Jim Dolan closed today.

It should be cause for grand celebration. But then again, only days after the deal was announced, a Newsday reporter told The Observer, "People are so beaten down here there’s not much of anything that could cause much of a reaction."

Vornado Realty Trust CEO Steve Roth told investors Tuesday that he wants to redo Penn Station in a scaled-back version of the grand Moynihan Station plan, moving Madison Square Garden’s WaMu theater out of the arena structure to make way for a large train station entrance hall.

Despite a push by Vornado and co-developer Related Companies to keep the larger-scale project alive via government support, Mr. Roth indicated he considers that scenario unlikely.

“[We] basically feel that something good is going to happen,” he said. “Either that the governments are going to get their acts together, which they probably will not, or ... we have with Madison Square Garden a Plan B, which is they stay where they are, we take out the theater, we—underneath the seating bowl of the arena—put a new grand entrance to Eighth Avenue and a new grand entrance to the station on Seventh Avenue, and what that will do is create a grand train station. Not quite as grand as moving it, but pretty nice. Actually, spectacularly nice.”  read more »

When Madison Square Garden unceremoniously announced on March 27, via late-afternoon calls to reporters, that it was moving forward on a renovation of its arena, it seemed to be the death blow to the planned redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station and the surrounding area. The Garden, led by chairman James Dolan, was exhausted with the lack of progress in a slow-moving, state-led plan to remake and expand the station, to be called Moynihan Station, which required the Garden’s moving to a new arena in the neighboring Farley Post Office.  read more »

Yesterday at Cablevision's annual shareholders meeting, Cablevision boss Charles Dolan acknowledged that he's not quite sure what he got himself into with buying Newsday.

"We're very aware of our inexperience with newspapers," he said.

But!

"We plan to consult widely and seek advice from people who have backgrounds and are professionals in the field."  read more »

On the afternoon of May 10, when word got out that Rupert Murdoch was dropping his bid to buy Newsday, the writing was on the wall: For a likely $650 million, the odd-couple father-and-son team of Chuck and Jim Dolan would be the paper’s new owners.

So on May 11, Newsday’s business desk dispatched reporter Ellen Yan to the Dolans’ compound in Oyster Bay Cove to try to buttonhole the new owners for a story.

She looked for their house, having bought a flower in case it, in turn, might buy a little goodwill—it was Mother’s Day, after all!  read more »

The Dolans win the bidding for the Long Island daily for $650 million. The deal is structured the way Sam Zell needed it to be--the Dolans pick up 97 percent of the company, while the Tribune company retains 3 percent. Here's the release:

CABLEVISION TO ACQUIRE 97% STAKE IN NEWSDAY MEDIA GROUP THROUGH PARTNERSHIP WITH TRIBUNE COMPANY IN A $650 MILLION TRANSACTION

Returns Newsday to Long Island-based Ownership After Nearly 40 Years  read more »

Later this morning, Newsday should belong to the Dolans.

Their $650 million bid will likely be accepted by Tribune owner Sam Zell later this morning, and the only thing that stands in the way are "minor details," said Charles Dolan in an interview last night with Newsday. The Times reports that Charles and James Dolan were in Chicago two weeks ago talking to Sam Zell, and Cablevision bankers and lawyers are there now hashing out the final terms of the deal.  read more »

The Dolans bought the Sundance Channel today for $496 million. And what of Newsday? They still have the leading bid.

David Paterson was on the WFAN "Boomer and Carton" show this morning, expressing frustration over the city’s stalled major development projects.

“What I’m going to do," Paterson told the hosts, "is probably move construction of Moynihan [Station] to the Port Authority, which I think has a better chance of getting it done quickly, and I hope that we can start construction quickly enough that we can reverse plans that exist.”  read more »

Developers Vornado Realty Trust and the Related Companies are grasping for options to keep alive a multibillion dollar redo of Penn Station and related real estate development, as they have asked the city and state to back a loan to build a new Madison Square Garden in the Farley Post Office across Eight Avenue.

The proposal is intended to lure the Garden back to the table, as the company, led by Chairman James Dolan, pulled out of the larger plan in March. The state is considering the offer as one of many options for the project, a state official confirmed.

In this option, the state and city could be saddled with the cost of the arena—said to be in the range of $900 million to $1 billion—should the larger redo of Penn Station ultimately fall apart.  read more »

It's officially a horse-race for the tabloid in a tutu.  read more »

Isiah Thomas, who coached the Knicks to one of their worst seasons in franchise history this year, has been fired, the AP reports.

WNBC.com got hold of a March 25 letter from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to Madison Square Garden Chairman James Dolan, Vornado Realty chief executive Steve Roth, and the heads of the M.T.A. and Amtrak, faulting the parties for holding up the installation of a security perimeter around Penn Station to protect what he called “the single most critical transit hub in the United States” from terrorist attacks.  read more »

Today, Donnie Walsh was named the new president of the New York Knicks, which means for the MSG beat reporters who cover the team, the place might feel a little less like hell.

The Times' Howard Beck--who told the Observer in November that covering the Knicks was a "miserable" assignment--just published a story on Mr. Walsh's hiring, and tells us what it means for his cohort:  read more »

The New York Knicks’ decision to hire longtime Pacers’ executive Donnie Walsh to run basketball operations should fill Knicks fans with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

Fortunately, the team has nowhere to go but up, and the fan base’s wish list is likely smaller than it has ever been. No demands for a championship. Basketball that is merely watchable will be a cause for celebration.

Walsh brings an undeniable record of success with him—while Indiana has not won an NBA title, the Pacers have been to the playoffs all but two seasons with Walsh in the front office since 1989-90.  read more »

The Observer's Eliot Brown broke the news on Friday that the Dolans may balk at moving Madison Square Garden a block west, a necessary component of the grand Moynihan Station plan. The Times' Charles Bagli on Saturday reported on the general problems now threatening the entire plan, including a softening real estate economy.

Crain's now reports that a failed Moynihan Station plan could mightily impact Steve Roth's Vornado Realty Trust. The publicly traded landlord is one of two developers--Stephen Ross' Related Companies is the other--working with the state and other entities, including the Dolan family, on the project.  read more »

In a morning sure to be rife with Jim Dolan-bashing, the City Council is holding a hearing Monday on a Madison Square Garden tax break, as elected officials are calling for an end to the approximately $11 million-a-year property tax exemption. The movement to revoke the break is gaining steam at the same time that Mr. Dolan, the owner of Madison Square Garden and a true darling of the media, is in negotiations to move across the street into the Farley Post Office as part of a complex redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station.  read more »

The New York Knicks' media-relations team picked favorites over the weekend.

Three papers--The Times, the Post and Newsday--got the scoop that Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan informed Knicks head coach Isiah Thomas that his job was safe. All three papers attributed the news to the same source ("a high-ranking Garden official"), and included the detail that Mr. Dolan compared Mr. Thomas to once-embattled New York Rangers general manager and coach Glenn Sather. The other two papers that cover the team as a beat, the Daily News and the Bergen Record, missed out...  read more »

Basketball inferno: 4-9 team, Thomas’ harassment, hostile Dolans; reporters claw at exits: News’ Isola exiled, Post’s Vaccaro: ‘A gulag’; Times’ Beck: ‘Beat makes me miserable’; Star-Ledger halts coverage.  read more »

This is a team, to put it plainly, that’s built to underachieve.  read more »

The attempt by Charles and James Dolan to take Cablevision private failed today. The media and sports giant revealed that shareholders had voted against the Dolans' bid to acquire the company for $36.25 per share in cash.

The Times' Dealbook blog reports:

The investor vote leaves Cablevision as an independent company and spells an end, for now, to two years of takeover efforts by the Dolans. Though Cablevision did not provide a breakdown of the vote, large shareholders, proxy advisory firms and analysts had expressed strong reservations about the offer.

The entities owned or operated by Cablevision include: Optimum, AMC, IFC, WE tv, Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, Rangers and Liberty, Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theatre, and Clearview Cinemas.  read more »

Nobody ever wants to go on record when talking about James Dolan—but everybody seems to have a sto  read more »

Nobody ever wants to go on record when talking about James Dolan—but everybody seems to have a  read more »

Crain's is reporting that the Dolans have finally agreed to rebuild the jinxy Madison Square Garden one block west, on Ninth Avenue, as part of the renovation of the Farley post-office building. They're sourcing it anonymously.

A new office tower would go up above Penn Station instead.  read more »

[A] source said The Related Cos. brokered the deal by smoothing over hard feelings remaining from the West Side stadium fight between the Bloomberg administration and Cablevision executive James Dolan, the Garden’s chairman.

Meanwhile, office and retail development originally scheduled for the western end of the Farley block will be scotched to make way for the new Garden. - Tom McGeveran

What's the point of having a front group if you can't stay behind the curtain?That's the question th  read more »

The good folks at Cablevision have an interesting question: Why should taxpayers shell out up to $60  read more »

On Wednesday, June 16, New York Jets owner Robert Wood Johnson IV is scheduled to give a speech at t  read more »

The Dolan family, the dynasty that owns Cablevision and Madison Square Garden, has hired a small arm  read more »

About two weeks before Christmas, state officials dropped a present down Charles Dolan's chimney at  read more »

James Dolan, the chief executive of Cablevision Systems Corporation-the corporate behemoth that owns  read more »