Settlement reached in News 12 lawsuit
Altice USA to keep 370 jobs through next year as part of deal with Dolans
One year after the founding family of Cablevision sued Altice USA, alleging it breached terms of a contract in cutting jobs at News 12, the sides finalized a settlement agreement on the eve of the lawsuit heading to trial.
After spending $17.7 billion for Cablevision in 2016, Altice USA moved News 12’s Norwalk studio operations to New Jersey, along with a studio in Westchester County, while maintaining field reporting crews locally.
The family of Charles Dolan sued for Altice USA to honor an earlier business plan, specifying News 12 was to have maintained the equivalent of 460 fulltime jobs through 2020. Under the settlement reached Wednesday, Altice USA will maintain at least 370 jobs through next year, the number at the time the Dolans filed suit.
The Dolans had contended that after cutting 70 News 12 jobs in early 2017, Altice USA had planned to reduce staffing levels by 10 percent annually for an unspecified number of years, prompting the family to file its lawsuit a year ago. The lawsuit cited at $7 million the annual compensation savings for Altice USA as a result of those initial job cuts.
In a statement, former News 12 President Patrick Dolan said the family was “satisfied” with the settlement, with elements of the pact including Altice USA committing to maintaining its current structure of studios and newsrooms and providing job security for remaining employees. Altice USA issued no independent comment beyond a short joint statement attributed to its company and the Dolan family.
Altice USA bolstered its news offerings this past June with the $200 million acquisition of Cheddar, a streaming news service focused on attentiongrabbing headlines and business news, with its anchor team including two former News 12 employees.
In addition to southwestern Connecticut and New Jersey, News 12 focuses its coverage on New York’s Hudson River Valley and Long Island, and the Bronx and Brooklyn boroughs of New York City. Altice USA does not publish viewership estimates for the individual channels, with News 12 Connecticut having generated about 123,000 “likes” on Facebook and 91,000 followers on Twitter, versus some 400,000 and 356,000 respectively for News 12 Long Island.
A News 12 anchor and reporter on Long Island
had signed onto the original lawsuit as formal plaintiffs, with the Long Island studio debuting in December 1986 as the first roundtheclock regional cable news channel in the United States.
In an earlier court memorandum, a judge termed as “ambiguous” elements of the deal contested by the Dolans, while noting the family was “particularly fond of (News 12) and protective of its legacy” and that they had sought initially to retain the operation, with Altice insisting it be included in the 2016 deal. According to the court memorandum, Altice characterized as a “good will” offer its commitment to maintaining workforce levels the Dolans had identified, rather than a legal obligation.
“Altice contends that the commitment to honor the (News 12) business plan was expressly not among the covenants that survived the closing of the (merger),” Vice Chancellor Joseph Slights III wrote in the court of chancery for the state of Delaware. “Altice acknowledges ... (to) the extent the Dolan family thought they had obtained more, they negotiated a ‘bad deal.’”