Malone Jets: Liberty's Dr Is Overboard

Dr John Malone resigned from Cablevision’s board Mon "to avoid any potential concerns that could arise from his being a director of the companies and Liberty, each of which owns programming companies," an SEC filing said. This could increase speculation that the Rainbow nets are in play. But Malone didn’t mention them at a recent investor conference, focusing instead on his desire to acquire National Geographic Channel. He also mentioned Scripps Nets, but said they’re not likely to be for sale in the near term. CVC refused comment except to confirm that speculation Malone might be interested in CVC programming assets was just that-speculation. The sudden departure comes 3 months after Chuck Dolan augmented his board with Malone, former Viacom CEO Frank Biondi, Dr Leonard Tow and former ITT CEO Rand Araskog during his showdown with son Jim over the Voom DBS business (Cfax, 3/3). At first thought to be a board created to jump at Chuck’s whims, the board wound up making a series of logical and investor-friendly moves. Malone was part of a slate of directors elected May 19 during an annual shareholder meeting.