Cablevision Buying Sundance Channel
May 8, 2008

After a rewarding rise to prominence to become a respected and credible offshoot of the Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Channel will soon be bought by Cablevision Systems Corp, which will then be adding the channel to its Rainbow Media collection of properties.

According to Reuters, Cablevision will likely serve up 12.7 million of its shares of General Electric stock in return for 100% of the Sundance Channel, which is estimated to be valued at nearly $496 million in a cash sharing deal between Cablevision, GE, NBC Universal, Showtime Networks, and various properties owned by Robert Redford. As Reuters reveals, "NBC owns around 57 percent of Sundance, CBS owns 37 percent and Redford the remaining 6 percent."

In the midst of a cable boom, where many media companies are seeking to acquire their own lucrative cable network, Reuters further reports that although a rep from stock specialist company Miller Tabak feels the deal is a wise move, MT analyst, David Joyce is also "... a little surprised that neither NBC or CBS tried to take full control of Sundance. Everyone would like to own cable networks right now."

It was also announced that Robert Redford will be staying involved with the Sundance Channel after the deal goes through.