Crains New York - March 4, 2013 - (Page 4)

photos: buck ennis IN THE MARKETS by Aaron Elstein Crain’s New York Business seeks nominations for its annual Top Entrepreneurs awards. The six winners will have distinguished themselves by showing a pattern of growth and innovation in their businesses and by contributing to the quality of life in their communities. Firms must be for-profits that have been in business for at least three years. They must have annual sales of less than $100 million and be located in New York City. Companies can nominate themselves or they can be nominated by a business contact. The entry deadline is March 15. Winners Motivate. Celebrate. Congratulate. will be profiled in the June 3 issue. To submit an entry, complete the form at www.crainsnewyork.com/features/ top-entrepreneurs/nominate. Last year’s winners were (from left) Matt Blumberg of Return Path, Charles Feit of OnForce Solar, Laura Geller of Laura Geller Makeup, Colin McCabe and Tony Shure of Chop’t Creative Salad Co., Joe Meyer of HopStop, and Clint White and Simona Tanasescu of WiT Media. Have a question? Contact Contributing Editor Elaine Pofeldt at epofeldt@ crainsnewyork.com. Macy’s Gift Cards are the perfect present for clients, customers and employees. Redeemable at over 800 stores nationwide and on macys.com, they’re one of the smartest business decisions you’ll make this year. And they never expire! Call Macy’s Herald Square (212) 494-3620 and be sure to ask about our volume discounts, or visit macys.com/corporatesales newscom Crain’s seeks nominations for 2013’s Top Entrepreneurs Customers tune out Cablevision A steady stream of New York companies are reporting how much damage they sustained from Sandy. They now include Cablevision Systems Corp., which last week disclosed a $109 million drop in adjusted operating cash flow for the fourth quarter as a result of the storm. The company worked hard to repair the damage, deploying 1,000 generators and repairing more than 450 miles of damaged lines after 60% of its 3.2 million cable customers had their service interrupted. Still, there was only so much Cablevision could do. That’s because most of its customers rely on the Long Island Power Authority, which did a dismal job restoring power after Sandy. But what really stung is that the Bethpage, L.I.-based company lost 50,000 cable-TV customers last quarter, more than triple the loss experienced in the year-earlier period. That, more than anything Sandy-related, explains why Cablevision’s stock price dropped by 11% last week. Luring these folks back could be tough, considering that people now can watch many of their favorite programs online. Meanwhile, cable bills are marching higher as networks like ESPN charge ever more for their broadcasts. Programming costs for Cablevision and other carriers soared by 12% last year, according to debtresearch firm CreditSights, and are expected to rise by a similar amount this year. That rate of inflation, by the way, is equal to Nigeria’s. To defray these rising costs, Cablevision said last month that starting in April all customers would pay an extra $2.98 per month to cover the expense of carrying the Yankees’ YES Network, the Mets’ SNY and the Knicks’ MSG Network. (Dish TV and Verizon have instituted similar charges.) Irony alert: Cablevision owned the MSG Network until spinning it off in 2010, and Cablevision Chief Executive James Dolan (above) is the chairman of Madison Square Garden Co. Cablevision officials “only have themselves to blame for the rising costs they are facing,” observed CreditSights analysts in a report last week. Asked about his dual relationship with Cablevision and MSG by an analyst on a conference call last week,Mr.Dolan replied:“We do the right things for Cablevision.” If enough customers balk at Cablevision’s higher rates, one alternative for the carrier would be to move sports channels from basic-cable packages and create a premium tier. That was just what Cablevision proposed back when the Yankees launched YES in 2002, and, as a result, the provider didn’t carry the network for a year.That history may have been on Mr. Dolan’s mind last week when an analyst asked him if he thought sports programming should be paid for only by cable customers who want it. “I don’t think I’m going to comment on that,” Mr. Dolan said. Ⅲ $8.6M THE AMOUNT Fairway Markets has paid in management fees since 2009 to Sterling Investment Partners, the private-equity firm that bought a controlling stake in the grocer back in 2007. The fee goes away after Fairway goes public, which it hopes to do now that its Sandy-damaged store in Brooklyn has reopened. 4 | Crain’s New York Business | March 4, 2013 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/features/top-entrepreneurs/nominate http://www.macys.com http://www.macys.com/corporatesales http://www.macys.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - March 4, 2013

Crains New York - March 4, 2013
IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
SMALL BUSINESS
REAL ESTATE DEALS
BUSINESS PEOPLE
OPINION
GREG DAVID
REPORT: 2013 ELECTIONS
CLASSIFIEDS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE LUNCH
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - March 4, 2013