Cablevision's Rainbow Media snaps up Sundance Channel for $496 million
Don't peek -- which would you think is cheaper? A fiber-to-the-premises network touching 36,000 residents and businesses, or a 12-year old television channel? If you guessed the latter, you'd be badly mistaken. While iProvo was sold for a mere $40.6 million, Rainbow Media, the cable programming subsidiary of Cablevision, had to cough up nearly half a billion dollars ($496 million, to be precise) in order to claim the Sundance Channel as its own. Yes, the Sundance Channel. Richard Greenfield, an analyst with Pali Research, seems to think that Cablevision may try to combine its newest acquisition with Independent Film Channel, which just so happens to have a high-def counterpart. Of course, it's hard to say what will happen with it so soon after the buy, but if the sale ends up creating another (or more widespread) HD channel, we're all for it.
