Charles Dolan

Charles Dolan built Cablevision on Long Island and created its programming arm, Rainbow Media, in late 1980. Rainbow launched the service that became Bravo in December 1980 and American Movie Classics in late 1984, and Cablevision became Rainbow's sole owner in 1983 after its three partners left. Dolan, who had founded HBO before selling it to Time Inc., was still the controlling shareholder when Cablevision spun Rainbow's entertainment assets off as AMC Networks in 2011. He retired as executive chairman in September 2020 and became chairman emeritus, and died on December 28, 2024 at the age of 98.

AMC Global Media was not a startup. Its predecessor, Rainbow Media, began in late 1980 as a programming venture led by Charles Dolan's Cablevision with Comcast, Cox Communications and Daniels and Associates as partners; Cablevision was sole owner by 1983. Rainbow's job was to supply channels for cable systems, and its main entertainment asset was American Movie Classics, launched in late 1984 to show pre-1970 Hollywood films without commercials. The channel stayed that way for two decades while Rainbow built regional sports networks, IFC in 1994, Romance Classics in 1997, which became We TV, and bought the Sundance Channel in June 2008. The turn came in the 2000s under Josh Sapan, who moved AMC into original scripted drama: Mad Men in 2007, Breaking Bad in 2008 and The Walking Dead in 2010. In 2011 Cablevision spun the entertainment networks off as AMC Networks, keeping Dolan family voting control through Class B shares, and the company renamed itself AMC Global Media in April 2026.