It looks like Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) is starting to get-it-in-gear. Hence, I'm reiterating my Buy rating for CVC, first recommended on May 29, 2009 at a price of $19.03. If you purchased CVC then, you're up about 30%.

Even ignoring the potential spin-off of sports arena Madison Square Garden, Cablevision's positives have always been compelling: fifth-largest cable t.v. operator (about 10.4 million revenue generating units), with a strong presence in a lucrative market (New York City area, 3.1 cable t.v. subscribers); included in that are about 2.8 million premium cable t.v. subscribers, called iO Digital; nearly 2.5 million high-speed internet subscribers; and 1.9 million internet voice (telephone) subscribers.

Cablevision (NYSE: CVC - option chain) shares are rising today after a feature in Barron's indicated that the company could be an attractive takeover target now that it has decided to spin off New York City sports arena Madison Square Garden and related assets. These assets include MSG Television Network, and the New York Rangers and Knickerbockers. Both teams play at the Garden, which is an arena located in midtown Manhattan. Barron's says that a spin-off of MSG would make Cablevision's balance sheet much more attractive. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on CVC.

CVC opened this morning at $24.74. So far today the stock has hit a low of $24.40 and a high of $25.00. As of 11:55, CVC is trading at $24.53 up 21 cents (0.9%). The chart for CVC looks neutral and S&P gives CVC a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

Christine A. Varney heads up antitrust at the Department of Justice, and she's going hunting. She is the point person for a group consisting of the presidential administration and some Congressional Democrats that is looking to put the breaks on large companies in several industries.

Already, airlines have run into roadblocks when requesting relief from antitrust regulations. Varney & Co. are digging into complaints by AT&T (NYSE: ATT) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) that cable competitors – e.g., Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) – have locked them out of the market for cable company-produced programming.

(Imagine that, a phone company complaining! Usually, they're the objects of derision.)

Julia Boorstin covered an interesting topic over at CNBC.com the other day. The Supreme Court, by electing not to review a case involving Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), essentially said that cable companies such as Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) can pursue digital video recorder (DVR) storage on cable-system servers. By doing this, a perceived barrier to entry for subscribing to DVR has been eliminated: you don't have to deal with a clunky box. Cable should theoretically see an increase in customers who adopt DVR technology if remote storage is exploited.

Well, as Boorstin rightly points out, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Fox do need to worry. These DVR technologies basically translate to a drop in the economic value of advertising. Let's face it: who watches commercials when they don't have to?

In this market, it pays to hedge growth with safety, and if one can accomplish this in one play, so much the better. Cablevision Systems (NYSE: CVC) offers that opportunity.

Cablevision's compelling positives: fifth-largest cable television operator (about 10.4 million revenue generating units), with a strong presence in a lucrative market (New York City area, 3.1 million cable TV subscribers); included in that latter total are about 2.8 million premium cable TV subscribers, called iO Digital; nearly 2.5 million high-speed internet subscribers; and 1.9 million internet voice (telephone) customers.

The big news in sports this week was not LeBron James winning the MVP, nor was it the Kentucky Derby, Manny Ramirez and his drug test have made a late run at story of the week, but I am giving the sports story of the week to the Phoenix Coyotes and the NHL.

Let's start with the Coyotes. The team has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and it seems that the team is destined to move, although Commissioner Bettman (some who call him Fraudmissioner or Failmissioner) contends that won't happen. Rumors have the team pulling up roots and heading to Hamilton, Ontario - making the Coyotes round trip come back home (for those unfamiliar, the Coyotes started in Canada and were moved). I have long touted the Coyotes as one of the problems of the modern NHL. This is a team that is truly a fish out of water. Even with history stretching back to the halcyon days of the Winnipeg Jets, the team could not (or would not) be embraced by fans whose only exposure to ice was to watch it melt in their iced tea. The ownership was attracted to Phoenix because of the promise of big money, and boy did it backfire.

DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) closed at $22.98. DTV is scheduled to report Q4 EPS on February 10. February option implied volatility is at 64; March is at 59; above its 26-week average of 53, according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Echostar (NASDAQ: DISH) closed at $12.84. DISH is expected to report Q3 EPS in late February. March option implied volatility is at 83, June is at 74; above its 26-week average of 63, according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

This post is part of our Ads Gone Bad series. Share your thoughts and memories of this ad in the comments, and be sure to check out our other posts on marketing gone wrong.

Blending cultures is a particular challenge for advertisers. How do they appeal to one culture without offending others, who may misunderstand references and not recognize noted figures featured in ads? These are questions that Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) is probably asking.

To market its "Triple Play" offering (bundled cable, broadband, and telephone), the company hired globalWorks to create ads featuring the music and stars of reggaeton. Reggaeton, urban music that became popular with Latin American young people in the 1990s, is a fusion of Caribbean reggae and Latin forms such as salsa with rap and hip-hop.

Harbinger Capital Management -- a hedge fund with the inane specialty of taking activist stakes in companies with entrenched managements and dual-class voting structures -- has raised its stake in Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) to 8.1%, according to a 13-D filed with the SEC.

When Harbinger first reported its 4.9% stake, I wrote that "the company's dual-class voting structure means that the Dolan family controls 75% of the voting rights, giving it full control over the board of directors and the company's future. Philip Falcone, the guy who runs Harbinger, can make all the noise and demands he wants, and he might even get a couple seats on a family-controlled board. But any ideas that Falcone has are the equivalent of going up to the CEO in a bar and telling him how he should run the business. Maybe he'll do what you suggest, and maybe he won't. He'll do whatever he wants, and Falcone's stake isn't going to accomplish anything."

Guess what? Owning 8.1% changes absolutely nothing. Collins Stewart analyst Thomas Eagan tells (subscription required) The Wall Street Journal that "They are sending a message that they want to play a role in the direction the company takes."

Great. But that doesn't mean the Dolans will listen. If they wanted to listen to shareholders, they wouldn't have the dual-class voting structure.

Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), one of my favorite corporate governance brothels, met with its disgruntled shareholders and reluctantly agreed to its idea of a shareholder-friendly initiative: a 10 cent per share quarterly dividend.

That works out to a yield of less than 1.3% based on the current share price and, needless to say, the disenfranchised shareholders aren't exactly thrilled. Mario Gabelli, whose fund is a major shareholder and a constant critic of the company's management and governance, told The Guardian that "To pay a 10-cent dividend which is $30 million is nice, but it's not what we wanted. . . They should have authorized a $1 billion buyback and they would use incremental cash flows to fund it. They clearly did not listen to shareholders."

Duh. But here's the thing, Mario: the whole point of having a dual-class voting structure where one family has complete control over the company is that you don't have to listen to shareholders. If the Dolans wanted to listen to shareholders, they wouldn't have adopted that structure in the first place and/or they'd get rid of it now!

I'm all for fruitless struggles based on principles, but it's pretty silly of Gabelli and other activists to be taking on a company where there's no mechanism for holding the board of directors accountable. Maybe they should head over to North Korea and complain indignantly that the regime is not doing a good job representing the interests of the people.

Cablevision (NYSE: CVC), an entertainment & communications company controlled by the Dolan family, closed at $21.65 Tuesday.

The Dolan family has made frequent attempts over the last four years to implement strategic alternatives at CVC.

CVC is expected to announce Q2 EPS on July 31.

CVC August option implied volatility of 47 is above its 26-week average of 40 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Option Update is provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com

Shareholders of Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) must be scratching their heads over the company's $650 million purchase of Newsday from Tribune Co., the latest in a long series of baffling moves by the Dolan family, which controls the New York-based cable company.

The theory -- if you want to call it that -- is that Cablevision would be able to market the newspaper to its customers and that the company would be able to add additional content to its cable news channel. This makes no sense. People have stopped reading newspapers in droves. The only way that they would even consider subscribing is if Cablevision practically gave the newspaper away. Newsday could have struck an alliance with the cable channel to share content without the paper changing hands; these sort of deals happen all of the time.

Maybe advertisers will be more interested in Newsday now that Cablevision will be able to bundle ad space in the paper and its website along with cable commercial time. The problem, though, is that residents in Long Island have a plethora of media choices including the New York Times, New York Daily News and The New York Post. Like the readers, the only way that advertisers that aren't in the newspaper now would consider doing business with Newsday would be with steep discounts.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that a spokesperson for New Corporation (NYSE: NWS) said the company has dropped out of the bidding for Tribune Co's (NYSE: TXA) Newsday. This leaves Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) as the apparent winner of the auction.
• According to people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported that American International Group Inc's (NYSE: AIG) airplane-leasing unit is considering a split from the company. The people said International Lease Finance Corp have grown "increasingly concerned" the company will be hurt by AIG's financial troubles.
• Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE: RDS.A) and Spain's Repsol YPF SA (NYSE: REP) are pulling out of one of Iran's biggest gas projects, the $10B-plus development of phase 13 of South Pars, the world's largest gas field, the Financial Times reported.

WEB SITES:

• Bloomberg reported that HSBC Holdings Plc (NYSE: HBC) set aside a smaller-than-forecast $3.2B for bad loans in the U.S. The bank also said its Q1 profit was higher than Q107.

The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) is reporting that News Corp. has withdrawn its bid for Newsday (subscription required). Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was unwilling to match the $650 million bid offered by Cablevision (NYSE: CVC). New York Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman had also bid on Newsday.

Besides being higher, Cablevision's bid is likely to face fewer regulatory hurdles, considering Murdoch's and Zuckerman's New York holdings. But, according to the Journal, the bid could prompt some pushback from investors who question the the strategic rational for the deal. Cablevision could bundle Newsday subscriptions with other broadband and phone services it offers in the New York area.

Tribune Co. (NYSE: TXA), current owner of Newsday, recently reported that first-quarter revenue and circulation was down, as newspapers continue to struggle. Cablevision also reported a first-quarter loss of 11 cents per share.

Rainbow Media Holdings, a Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) programming subsidiary, announced today that it will acquire 100% ownership of the Sundance Channel. Sundance is currently owned by NBC Universal, which is owned General Electric (NYSE: GE), and Showtime Networks, which is owned by CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS), as well as various entities controlled by Robert Redford.

The exchange will be valued at approximately $496 million and consists of a tax-free exchange of 12.7 million GE shares held by Rainbow and given to General Electric and cash given to CBS and Redford entities for their interests.

Sundance began in 1996 under the direction of Robert Redford, with the goal of creating a channel that brings dedicated viewers while promoting artistic freedom of expression through various films, series, and documentaries. It now reaches some 30 million subscribers and with the acquisition, Sundance will join Rainbow's portfolio of channels, including AMC, IFC and WE.

Jon Ogg produces and edits the Special Situation newsletter for 247WallSt.com.