Don't Do It, Robert Redford!

redfordgreenstill.jpgThe Sundance Channel is for sale -- and Cablevision could be the eventual buyer, according to a Pali research report released today to Bloomberg financial news. Started in 1996, The Sundance Channel was started to showcase Robert Redford's annual film festival and reaches about 26 million viewers devoted to indie, world cinema, documentaries, short films, and original programming. (Especially Iconoclasts when it paired Eddie Vedder and Laird Hamilton. A cool one coming up: Sean Penn and Jon Krakauer.) Now owners GE's Universal Studios (55%), CBS' Showtime Networks (35%), and Redford (10%), who also acts as the creative director, are seeking $400 million to $500 million for the channel, according to analyst Richard Greenfield. The cable operator already owns the Independent Film Channel, IFC Films and AMC Network so this would be yet more media consolidation. But Greenfield sees it as "a positive long-term strategic move" for Cablevision's IFC. He wrote that Viacom and Time Warner may also be interested, since they have specialty film divisions. "While we believe both NBC and CBS would have interest in owning 100 percent of the network, we believe issues surrounding pricing to an existing owner make it more likely that the network is sold to a third party,'' Greenfield wrote. Once commercial-free, The Sundance Channel -- an extension of Redford's non-profit Sundance Institute -- already has decided to sell-out by accepting advertising. 

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6 Comments »

  1. If Redford only has 10% of the stock, then the decision to sell or not is clearly outside his control. Imploring him not to do it seems pointless.

    Comment by Richard — March 19, 2008 @ 1:02 pm

  2. I would suggest selling the channel to a consortium of independent film producers and distributors, but I don’t think there are that many left who haven’t gone belly-up or been absorbed into some bloated media conglomerate, never to be seen again.

    Which is a shame, and a problem, because the big media companies own dozens, if not hundreds of channels and other outlets, and there’s a serious and growing drought of content. The drought is because there is only so much original content a single company can make, no matter how big they are.

    And I think the Sundance brand lost a lot of “indie” street-cred when Paris Hilton started attending the festival.

    Comment by Furious D — March 19, 2008 @ 1:36 pm

  3. He sold out Sundance film festival along time ago. More like hollywood gone north. To many big names not enough of people who actually need the exposure

    Comment by dealingwithanutcase — March 19, 2008 @ 3:16 pm

  4. What crap. Redford is a huge hypocrite, from the way he pretends not to have any responsibility for Sundance turning into a B-list celebrity freak show, or any of the environmental damage (all those Harvey Weinstein private jets,) to deciding to program the feed from the late Air America at 11:00pm on the Sundance channel. Wouldn’t it have been a lot more sensible to program movies? From the absurd Lions for Lambs to this, he’s become somebody who’s bought into his own myth.

    Comment by Stephen — March 19, 2008 @ 3:20 pm

  5. I live in metro Phoenix and have Cox cable. To my surprise, I woke up and found that there was no Bloomberg channel. When I called they told me nothing of any consequence, just that it was not being carried anymore. So I asked what tier bloomberg news was in - the sports tier - and I said cancel that since I don’t watch any of the 14 other channels I had to buy to get the 1 channel I wanted.

    Now, IFC (non-commercial and tiered option) along with my AMC (on basic cable that does have commercials) are going to be sold.

    Can anyone tell me why I can’t sign up with these companies and just check off the channels I want instead of ‘packaging’ that occurs? With technology where it is today, it should be easier then ordering a pizza online with specific toppings.

    And one last comment: GE’s CEO came out and said NO NO NO they were not selling NBC/Universal, but I guess nobody asked him if he was shopping the 55% they own of Sundance.

    TimeWarner would be good but so would MGM since they don’t have a channel to run their programs and instead have to find outlets for their programs.

    Its nuts.

    Comment by Kay McCann — March 19, 2008 @ 5:02 pm

  6. Sundance channel has sucked for years now. It reflects the festival itself well in that way.
    Selling to someone can’t hurt the channel anymore than it’s hurt itself.

    Comment by manny — March 20, 2008 @ 2:36 am

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