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But sources familiar with the thinking of family patriarch Chuck Dolan not only recognize Newsday ownership as an objective he has pursued for decades but believe its realization could lead to real convergence in the troubled newspaper industry. "He has always had his eye on taking over the paper," CNN co-founder Reese Schonfeld said Friday after Newsday itself confirmed that Cablevision's long-rumored bid for the Long Island daily had been received by its Tribune Co. parent. "I knew this to be the case even before we started setting up News 12 together in 1984." Dolan, whose own journalistic background in sports has been obscured by his many accomplishments in cable, retained Schonfeld for a couple of years after CNN's successful launch. Their goal was to launch the country's first 24-hour network focused on local news -- a regional CNN -- which broadcasts to this day as News 12 Long Island. Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision now has four spinoffs of the local news station, ranging from News 12 the Bronx, to News 12 New Jersey and even to News 12 Interactive. But the inspiration for all came from a pre-launch, short-lived experiment with Newsday to put together a one-hour daily show using staff and other resources already employed by the paper's Melville newsroom. The show was "so packed," Dolan said in a Newsday story commemorating the 20th anniversary of News 12, "it led easily to the idea, 'Hey, let's do 24/7.'" The nonstop News 12 production resulting from that idea proceeded without Newsday, Schonfeld said, "because the local news business, once outside New York City, is not a profitable business." But it is a great differentiator. And for cable companies in competition with satellite broadcasters and, increasingly, video-dispensing telecoms, that makes local news a worthwhile loss leader. - Richard Morgan See the full story from The Daily Deal Categories Deal Video
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The 11th-hour, $650 million bid for Newsday by Cablevision Systems Corp. may seem like the sort of impetuous act that shareholders of the Long Island, N.Y., company have come to expect from its reigning Dolan family. 
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