The battling Dolan family at Cablevision Systems--the group that brought us seemingly endless episodes of in-fighting over the fate of the MSO's HD satellite venture Voom until its recent demise (via Cablevision)--seems no worse for the wear financially. The Wall Street Journal reports Cablevision Chairman Charles Dolan and his son, CEO James, both received deferred bonus packages of $28 million each. The money was deferred several years ago when the cable company was suffering some cash-flow problems (partly caused by the Voom experiment).
Last year, James (who opposed Voom) earned $1.6 million, plus a bonus of $4.8 million, plus "annual compensation" of $234,000, plus 120,000 stock options, plus other benefit, all worth an additional $1.5 million. On the other hand, father Charles (who tried valiantly to keep Voom going), last year earned just earned a base salary of $1.6 million. While Voom likely will find its HD services migrated to DBS, the Dolans have offered to buy Cablevision for nearly $8 billion and go private.
