Aidem Named President Of Rainbow Ventures
Exec Will Help With Sundance Transition; Identify Business Opportunities
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 6/18/2008 7:26:00 AM
A day after closing its acquisition of Sundance Channel, Rainbow Media Holdings has named Larry Aidem, the network’s leader, president of Rainbow Ventures.
In his new role, Aidem, who had been Sundance’s president and CEO, will focus on identifying strategic business opportunities for Rainbow, while helping with the transition of Sundance, which will remain its own brand, within the programmer’s stable. Aidem will report directly to Rainbow Media president and CEO Joshua Sapan.
A Rainbow spokeswoman said an announcement about new leadership for Sundance would come sometime this week.
“We are fortunate to have someone like Larry, who has more than two decades of experience in developing programming strategies for successful networks, joining Rainbow,” said Sapan in a statement. I know that we will benefit from Larry's knowledge as we integrate Sundance Channel, which he has led so skillfully, and as Rainbow continues to explore new and exciting initiatives.”
Although there had been some initial speculation that Rainbow might meld the channel with IFC, its chief network competitor in the independent film arena, that notion lost steam when it became clear that Sundance co-founder Robert Redford would have a "continuing association" with the 12-year-old service that counts some 30 million subscribers.
Rainbow purchased Sundance, the network which also was owned by NBC Universal and CBS Corp.’s Showtime Networks, for $496 million.
Sundance first went on the block in February after neither NBCU (which owns 57%) nor CBS (37%) could buy out the other partners.
UBS Investment Bank handled the sale, which was said to have drawn interest from more than one strategic buyer.
Cablevision will pay NBCU with 12.7 million shares in NBCU parent General Electric that it got through the sale of Bravo to NBCU in 2002. The asset had gained in value (possibly as much as $80 million), but Cablevision will be using it in a tax-free exchange.
CBS and Redford, who owned 6%, will receive cash. Cablevision said there'll be a cash adjustment with NBCU at closing based on the value of the GE shares in relation to the total purchase price.
Aidem joined Sundance in 1997 and a year later was named president and CEO, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the network. Aidem previously worked as executive vice president of business development for Showtime Networks, Inc., responsible for the company's U.S. and international channel development strategies, executed in tandem with Viacom. Before arriving at Showtime/Viacom in 1994, he was vice president of international operations for HBO.
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