The world’s media moguls and what they really control
Daniel Coughlin
04 July 2019
The planet's most powerful mass communication magnates
The old adage “whoever controls the media, controls the mind” rings as true today as it ever has, and a surprisingly low number of individuals own or have major stakes in many of the world's leading newspapers, magazines, websites, TV and radio stations, movie studios, book and publishers. We reveal the world's most powerful media moguls and exactly what they hold sway over.
Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay
The so-called “Barclay Brothers”, Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay are among the UK's foremost media tycoons. Their bulging portfolio includes Press Holdings, which owns the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, as well as The Spectator and Apollo art magazine. The identical twins have a number of other impressive assets too...
Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay
Their interests extend beyond newspapers and include London's Ritz Hotel, online retail business Shop Direct and delivery firm Yodel. Having courted controversy for their creative tax arrangements, the discreet pair are camera-shy and reclusive. They split their time between tax-free Monaco and the Channel Island of Brecqhou.
Silvio Berlusconi
Italy's Silvio Berlusconi has come a long way from his first job of selling vacuum cleaners. After taking a degree in law, he began his formal career in construction but entered the world of media in 1973 when he launched a local cable-TV channel: Telemilano. He soon rose to become the country's most powerful mass communications tycoon, as his company grew to become Mediaset. Italy's prime minister during three terms in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, Berlusconi holds a controlling stake in Fininvest, the holiding company for Mediaset, and the buck stops with him.
Silvio Berlusconi
Fininvest has a diversity of media assets. The group is not only the majority shareholder of Mediaset, which now owns three Italian TV channels, two Spanish TV stations and various news, entertainment and sport websites. It also controls book publisher Arnoldo Mondadori Editore and Milan's Teatro Manzoni.
Martin Bouygues and family
Martin Bouygues and members of his family have a controlling stake in Bouygues, the group founded by his late father Francis Bouygues in 1952. One of France's leading conglomerates, the business owns 43.9% of TF1 Group, a media company with assets that include France's most popular TV channel TF1, news channel LCI and numerous advertising, internet and book publishing interests.
Martin Bouygues and family
In addition to TF1, the conglomerate is known for its mobile phone, ISP and IPTV division Bouygues Telecom and is a major player in the global construction industry. Bouygues Construction and Colas, an infrastructure owned by the group, operate in scores of countries worldwide.
David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet
Canada's David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet, inherited a majority interest in his late father's media empire in 2006 along with an aristocratic title. Two years later the heir, who is worth $36.7 billion (£30bn), orchestrated the merger of Thomson Corporation with British newswire service Reuters and now controls Thomson Reuters, one of the largest media companies in North America.
David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet
The company recently sold its financial data business to Blackstone for $17 billion (£13.4bn) but has held on to its newswire division. Other assets that fall under Thomson Reuters' wing include Toronto-based newspaper The Globe and Mail and a number of book publishing, telecoms, legal and science concerns.
Alisher Usmanov
Given the Kremlin exerts strict control over the mass media in Russia, moguls have to play President Putin's game and tend to be close to the country's leader. Alisher Usmanov (pictured on the left, with Vladimir Putin) is no exception. After making a fortune in metals, mining and investments, the president's friend, who is worth $12.7 billion (£10bn) has grown to become the nation's most powerful media oligarch.
Alisher Usmanov
Usmanov, who has hit the headlines in the West for having had a large interest in Arsenal football team, co-owns Mail.Ru, Russia's largest internet company. The firm controls the country's three leading social media sites, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir. Usmanov also owns newspaper publisher Kommersant and part-owns MegaFon, the second-biggest mobile phone operator in Russia. Usmanov was also an early investor in American social media site, Facebook.
The Shoriki family
The descendants of Matsutaro Shoriki (pictured), the man referred to as “Japan's Citizen Kane”, own the Yomirui Group, the Asian country's largest media conglomerate. The group controls Yomiuri Shimbun, the daily newspaper with the largest circulation in the world.
The Shoriki family
The group also owns the Nippon TV network, the Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation and Chuokoron-Shinsha, which is a major publisher of novels, manga, magazines. Other notable assets range from the Yomiuri Giants pro baseball team to the Yomiuriland theme park in Tokyo.
Bruce Gordon
Rupert Murdoch may be Australia's leading media mogul, but Bruce Gordon comes a close second. The self-made multimillionaire, who started out working on his father's market stall selling fruit, is the owner of the WIN Corporation, the world's largest privately owned regional TV network, and one of the major shareholders of the Nine Entertainment Co.
Bruce Gordon
Gordon has control over an impressive number of assets. They include Australia's WIN TV channels and radio stations, content producer Crawford Productions, the Nine Network TV stations, various newspapers from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age to the Brisbane Times, consumer magazines, websites, and even a streaming service.
Oprah Winfrey
Dubbed the “Queen of All Media”, Oprah Winfrey is the only woman of colour to feature in our round-up and one of the few entirely self-made TV, movie and magazine moguls. Rising from rags-to-riches, Winfrey bagged her first TV job in the mid 1970s and eponymous talk show in 1984, which cemented her global fame.
Oprah Winfrey
Via her production company Harpo, Winfrey, who is worth $2.6 billion (£2.1bn), has founded a movie studio and media network, and in 2011 the mega-influential TV star launched The Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), which she shares with Discovery Inc. Harpo also publishes the O, The Oprah Magazine in partnership with Hearst.
Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere
English aristocrat Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere, is the chairman and controlling shareholder of British media company The Daily Mail & General Trust. The firm has its fingers in many pies and owns the UK's Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Metro newspapers along with MailOnline, the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world.
Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere
The blue-blooded media mogul, who is worth around $1.3 billion (£1bn), also has a 49% stake in one of Europe's leading business and financial magazine publishers Euromoney Institutional Investor, and is the ultimate owner of numerous other firms, including an events company.
Roberto Irineu, João Roberto and Jose Roberto Marinho
Together with his brothers João Roberto and Jose Roberto, Roberto Irineu Marinho (pictured on the left, with fellow media baron Rupert Murdoch) controls Grupo Globo, which they inherited from their mogul father Roberto. Each of the siblings is worth around $3 billion (£2.4bn) according to Forbes. Based in Rio de Janerio, the Brazilian organisation is the largest media conglomerate in Latin America.
Roberto Irineu, João Roberto and Jose Roberto Marinho
The group comprises Brazil's leading broadcaster Rede Globo, Globosat, which is the number one pay TV provider in the country, websites including news portal G1, movie studio Globo Filmes, record company Som Livre, and Brazil's leading newspaper O Globo.
Reed Hastings
American entrepreneur Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997, overseeing its transition from a humble DVD subscription business to the world's leading streaming service, which currently boasts 148 million paid subscribers around the globe. Hastings, who is the company CEO and chairman, is also its biggest individual shareholder.
Reed Hastings
As well as streaming bought-in content, Netflix has become one of the world's leading content producers, having ploughed billions of dollars into original programming. The company turned over $15.8 billion (£12.5bn) last year. As might be expected, Hastings has amassed a sizeable fortune off the back of Netflix's success. His net worth right now amounts to $3.9 billion (£3.1bn).
James Cox Kennedy and family
Along with wider members of the Cox family, Cox Enterprises chairman James Cox Kennedy controls 99% of the conglomerate founded by his grandfather James M Cox back in 1898. The Atlanta-based groups consists of three major divisions: Cox Communications, Cox Media Group and Cox Automotive.
James Cox Kennedy and family
Cox Communications is America's third-largest cable TV provider, Cox Media Group owns newspapers in Georgia and Ohio, and scores of TV and radio stations, while Cox Automotive offers remarketing services and digital marketing and software solutions for vehicle dealers and customers. James Cox Kennedy alone is worth $9.4 billion (£7.5bn).
Arnaud Lagardère and family
Arnaud Lagardère heads up the Lagardère Group, the French media conglomerate created by his late father Jean-Luc. Together with the wider family, Lagardère has a controlling stake. The group is one of the country's, if not the world's, major media players with a variety of big-name interests globally...
Arnaud Lagardère and family
Properties of the group include book publishers Hachette, Orion and Octopus, magazine and newspaper company Hachette Filipacchi, which owns a multitude of well-known titles from Paris Match Magazine to newspaper Nice-Matin, TV channels Gulli and MCM, radio stations like Virgin and Europe 1, and several non-media entities such as duty-free shop chain Aelia.
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg founded his eponymous media, financial services and software firm in 1981. Now a major philanthropist who has given away $8 billion (£6.2bn) to date, the magnate, who is worth $56.2 billion (£44.7bn), was mayor of New York for three terms. Bloomberg owns a chunky 88% of his namesake company.
Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg's assets include its flagship Bloomberg Terminal financial software system, the Bloomberg News wire service, Bloomberg Television, which broadcasts worldwide, along with a number of websites, magazines such as Bloomberg Businessweek, newsletters and the multiplatform Bloomberg Politics.
John Malone
Staying with American media magnates, John Malone is like his counterpart Michael Bloomberg, entirely self-made. After beginning his career in the planning and R&D departments of AT&T, Malone went on to work for TCI, transforming it into the largest cable company in the US. He oversaw its sale to AT&T in 1999 for over $50 billion.
John Malone
The “Cable Cowboy” as he is nicknamed, Malone, who is worth $7.1 billion (£5.6bn), is the controlling shareholder of Liberty Media, which started as a spin-off of TCI, as well as Liberty Global and Qurate Retail Group. The companies' assets include Sirius XM Satellite Radio, the Formula One Group, QVC, Virgin Media, and major interests in Discovery Inc. the UK's ITV channel and Lionsgate. Not only that but Malone is the biggest landowner in the US, owning over 2.2 million acres across America.
Elisabeth Mohn and family
The widow of German media mogul Reinhard Mohn, billionaire Elisabeth Mohn owns 19% of Bertelsmann together with the couple's three children. One of Europe's leading media groups, Bertelsmann, which was founded in 1835 by Carl Bertelsmann, emerged as an enormous conglomerate following World War II under the leadership of the late Reinhard Mohn.
Elisabeth Mohn and family
Today the conglomerate encompasses the largest book publisher in the world Penguin Random House, the RTL Group, which is one of Continental Europe's leading entertainment providers, magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr, music giant BMG and a number of other lucrative assets, including Europe's biggest printing business.
The Hearst family
Founded in 1887 by the original mass media mogul William Randolph Hearst, the corporation that bears his name remains a big part of the global media landscape. Scion William Randolph Hearst III is the current chairman, and together with his wider family is the ultimate owner of the conglomerate.
The Hearst family
The group has an abundance of media assets. They include newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, magazines from Elle and Harper's Bazaar to Esquire, numerous radio and ABC-affiliated TV stations, cable channels, business media such as Fitch Ratings and websites like iVillage, Medscape and Digital Spy.
Robin Li
While much of the mass media in China is directly controlled by the state, the Asian nation has more than its fair share of powerful media barons, including Robin Li aka Li Yanhong who is currently worth $6.7 billion (£5.3bn). In 2000 Li co-founded Baidu, the Chinese Google, which has grown to become the world's second largest search engine. He has served as CEO since 2004.
Robin Li
Besides its search engine business, Baidu is also heavily involved in artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, advertising hosting and app creation. In fact, its apps are used by a mind-blowing two billion people worldwide. Interestingly, Baidu is the first search engine to garner a licence from the Chinese government to produce its own news reports and other topical content.
Brian Roberts
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, who is worth some $2 billion (£1.6bn), has voting power over a third of the conglomerate that was co-founded by his father Ralph, who died in 2015. Comcast is a media force to be reckoned with. As well as being the world's biggest pay TV and second-largest broadcast and cable TV group, Comcast is America's leading home Internet Service Provider.
Brian Roberts
The many assets of the humongous conglomerate include Comcast TV, NBC Universal, which owns everything from E! and Bravo to the NBC Sports Networks, DreamWorks Animations, the studio behind Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, Xfinity cable TV, internet and telephone services, and Europe's Sky group, which was acquired last year from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox.
Carlos Slim Helú
Once the richest person in the world, Carlos Slim Helú may have fallen down the rankings but the Mexican magnate is currently worth an eye-popping $61.1 billion (£48.6bn). Along with his family, Slim controls Grupo Carso and América Móvil, the world's eighth-largest mobile network operator. Claro and Via Embratel pay TV are just two of the major media properties owned by the tycoon and his nearest and dearest.
Carlos Slim Helú
Though much of his companies' operations are centred in Latin America, Slim's media empire extends to the USA – the tycoon owns 17% of The New York Times newspaper. Slim also has a multitude of interests in property, manufacturing, retail and construction, hence his stupendous wealth.
Donald Newhouse
Together with the heirs of his late brother Si, Donald Newhouse (pictured here with Anna Wintour) owns Advance Publications, the firm established by the siblings' father Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr. in 1922. The media company is the parent of Condé Nast, which publishes the Vogue print magazines and websites, as well as the likes of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Glamour.
Donald Newhouse
Advance Publications also owns a chain of newspapers and business journals in the US. From local papers such as New Jersey's The Star-Ledger and Oregon's The Oregonian to a large stake in Discovery Inc., the parent firm of the Discovery Channel and Food Network. The group is also a major shareholder in social news website Reddit. Needless to say, Newhouse is a very rich man indeed – his current net worth stands at $12.9 billion (£10.3bn).
Bob Iger
The CEO of The Walt Disney Company since 2005, multimillionaire US executive Bob Iger has also become the group's number one individual shareholder. Disney has mushroomed into a vast conglomerate under Iger's leadership, acquiring Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm and most recently, the lion's share of 21st Century Fox.
Bob Iger
The new assets have added to existing flagships such as the Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar movie studios, the group's much-loved theme parks and resorts around the world, and TV channels like ABC and National Geographic. Disney also has major stakes in the Endemol Shine Group, ESPN, ViceMedia, Lifetime and the History network.
Pony Ma
Pony Ma aka Ma Huateng heads China's Tencent, the world's largest gaming company, one of the biggest social media firms on the planet and a leader in entertainment and artificial intelligence. China's most powerful new media tycoon, Ma is worth $40.5 billion (£32.2bn), making him the richest person in the country.
Pony Ma
In addition to Tencent QQ, the group's first and foremost division, which deals with its instant messaging software service, Tencent makes video games under its Tencent Games arm. The group also produces movies and TV shows, publishes comics, streams music, has e-commerce and microblogging platforms, and boasts its own search engine and media player.
Jeff Bezos
The richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, who is currently worth a staggering $159.2 billion (£126.5bn), owns a 16% stake in Amazon, the e-commerce and cloud computing giant he started in his garage in 1994. Bezos has become quite the media mogul. As well as controlling Amazon Music, Audible and Prime Video, he is the owner of The Washington Post. The unstoppable entrepreneur snapped up the venerable publication in 2013.
Jeff Bezos
Amazon has also emerged as a major player in the online advertising market and has a super-popular streaming service, Amazon Prime Video, a publishing business, as well as a movie and TV studio, which has produced a plethora of award-winning content, from top-grossing films like Manchester by the Sea to hit shows including The Man in the High Castle and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Jack Ma
China's answer to Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma aka Ma Yun has fast-become a leading media magnate to boot. Founded in 1999, his wildly successful conglomerate Alibaba now encompasses everything from electronic payment services to cloud computing and search engines. The group has been producing a variety of content for several years now.
Jack Ma
Current media assets range from China's largest movie studio by revenue Alibaba Pictures Group to AliMusic, which owns and operates several music streaming services. Alibaba has also branched out into instant messaging and has an email service called Alimail. No wonder Ma is so wealthy. His current net worth stands at $38.1 billion (£30.3bn).
Randall Stephenson
Multimillionaire Randall Stephenson is the CEO of America's AT&T and its leading individual shareholder. The world's largest telecoms company, AT&T has also morphed into the biggest media and entertainment conglomerate globally following its $100 billion (£78.5bn) acquisition of WarnerMedia this year.
Randall Stephenson
WarnerMedia has a bewildering array of assets. It principal properties include HBO and CNN Worldwide, and Warner Bros., which owns Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, New Line Cinema, and others. Not only that but the media giant also owns Warner Bros. Television, the parent of TMZ, The Cartoon Network and numerous other TV, cable network, video game and publishing operations.
Mark Zuckerberg
Though Mark Zuckerberg is constantly at pains to insist that Facebook is a technology rather than a media company, there's no denying the social network he founded in 2004 has a massive influence on the world's media landscape. Facebook has even started to stream original content through Facebook Watch, a video streaming service hosted and partly funded by the social network.
Mark Zuckerberg
As well as its Facebook Watch video-on-demand service, Facebook-owned Instagram has worked with external organisations like MTV and Meredith to create content for the standalone vertical video app IGTV. From where we're standing, Zuckerberg, who is worth $73.2 billion (£58.2bn), is most definitely a media mogul.
From Facebook to Red Bull: the companies that have created the most billionaires
Sumner Redstone
The man who coined the phrase “content is king!”, US magnate Sumner Redstone joined his father's National Amusements cinema chain in 1954 and has transformed it into a media juggernaut, acquiring Viacom and CBS along the way. Today, Redstone, who is worth $4.8 billion (£3.8bn), is still the controlling shareholder of both conglomerates.
Sumner Redstone
Ultimately controlled by Redstone, the assets Viacom owns range from movie studios Paramount Pictures and MTV Films to TV stations including MTV, BET, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, and several streaming services. CBS has the US CBS TV channels of course, Australia's Ten Network, not to mention book publisher Simon & Schuster and websites including Chowhound, CNET and TV.com.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Arguably the world's most powerful new media moguls, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are worth $50.7 billion (£40.3bn) and $51.8 billion (£41.2bn) respectively, founded Google in 1998 and haven't looked back. The president and CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of the planet's number one search engine, Brin and Page control the all-pervading business.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page
As well as Google, Alphabet owns YouTube, the leading video-sharing site in the world and premier online destination for user-generated content, which was acquired in 2006 for $1.7 billion (£1.3bn). Other Alphabet divisions of note include smartphone operating system Android and email service Gmail.
Rupert Murdoch
Australian-born tycoon Rupert Murdoch inherited several newspapers Down Under in the 1950s, and has gone on to build an incredibly formidable media empire that spans the globe. It consists of NewsCorp, which owns a string of mainly right-leaning newspapers including Britain's The Sun and The Times, and America's New York Post, as well as book publisher Harper Collins and Dow Jones & Company, the firm that produces The Wall Street Journal.
Rupert Murdoch
Murdoch, who is currently worth $21.7 billion (£17.2bn), also owns Fox Corp. The company was spun off earlier this year from media colossus 21st Century Fox following the sale of the bulk of its assets, including the famous movie studio, to Disney for $71.3 billion (£56.2bn). Fox Corp has retained control of the conservative news network Fox News, Fox Sports and the Fox Broadcasting channels.
Comments
Be the first to comment
Do you want to comment on this article? You need to be signed in for this feature