Michael Bloomberg - Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Media
Michael
Bloomberg, the richest billionaire in the media business,
returned to his eponymous media company in September 2014, eight
months after stepping down as mayor of New York City.
One
notable sign of his influence on the publication: Michael
Bloomberg doesn't appear on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
FORBES pegs his net worth at $45.7 billion. Bloomberg cofounded
his financial data company in 1981 with Charles Zegar and Thomas
Secunda, both of whom are now billionaires as well thanks to
their minority equity stakes in Bloomberg LP.
The company
expanded into business news coverage and has more than 2,000
reporters around the world.
In 2009, Bloomberg LP bought
Business Week magazine from McGraw Hill for a reported $5
million plus assumption of debt.
Rupert Murdoch - News Corp
Rupert
Murdoch, former CEO of 21st Century Fox , the parent of
powerhouse cable TV channel Fox News, may well be the world's
most powerful media tycoon.
He is executive co-chairman of 21st
Century Fox with his son Lachlan and is also chairman of News
Corp, which owns The Wall Street Journal and other publications.
Altogether, his family controls 120 newspapers across five
countries.
Saudi billionaire Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal also owns
1e of News Corp, after cutting down his holdings from 6% in
early 2015.
Donald and Samuel "Si" Newhouse - Advance Publications
Donald
Newhouse and his brother Samuel "Si"
Newhouse inherited Advance
Publications, a privately-held media company that controls a
plethora of newspapers, magazine, cable TV and entertainment
assets, from their father.
Advance owns newspapers in 25 cities
and towns across America and is the country's largest
privately-held newspaper chain.
Conde Nast, a unit of Advance
Publications, publishes magazines including,
-
Wired
-
Vanity Fair
-
The New Yorker
-
Vogue
Si stepped down as chairman of Conde
Nast in 2015.
Cox
Family - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cox
Enterprises , owned by the billionaire Cox family, counts The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a number of other daily papers
among its many media investments.
James Cox, the company founder
and grandfather of current chairman Jim Kennedy, bought his
first newspaper, the Dayton Ohio Evening News, in 1898.
The Cox
Media Group Division today owns the Journal-Constitution and six
other daily newspapers, more than a dozen non-daily
publications, 14 broadcast television stations, one local cable
channel and 59 radio stations.
***
John Henry - The Boston Globe
Billionaire
Red Sox owner John Henry purchased the Boston Globe in October
2013 for $70 million.
Henry agreed to purchase the Globe just
days after Bezos acquired the Washington Post. The Globe was
previously owned by the New York Times for twenty years.
At the
time of his purchase, Henry said he didn't plan to influence the
paper's sports coverage.
Sheldon Adelson - The Las Vegas Review-Journal
In December
2014, Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson secretly
bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The
newspaper's
own
reporting ousted the billionaire buyer, who reportedly
arranged the $140 million deal through his son-in-law.
Since
then, there have been reports of Adelson influencing coverage of
himself at a newspaper that in the past was often critical of
the billionaire.
Joe
Mansueto - Inc. and Fast Company magazines
Morningstar CEO
Joe Mansueto made his $2.3 billion fortune at
the investment and research firm he founded in 1984.
One month
after taking Morningstar public in 2005, Mansueto bought Inc.
and Fast Company magazine from G&J USA.
In a
statement at the time, he wrote,
"I wasn't looking to buy a
magazine. Or two, for that matter….I bought them because I'm
passionate about their missions.
Their past, present, and future contributions."
Mortimer Zuckerman - US News & World Report, New York Daily News
Real estate
billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman is the owner of both US News &
World Report and the New York Daily News.
Zuckerman serves as
chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, which
he bought in 1984.
In the years since, US News & World Report
has made a name for itself with its lucrative rankings,
including Best Colleges, Best Graduate School and Best Hospitals
lists.
Zuckerman bought the Daily News out of bankruptcy in 1993
and unsuccessfully tried to sell the tabloid newspaper for six
months in 2015.
Barbey family - Village Voice
In October
2015, investor Peter Barbey bought the Village Voice, a New York
City alternative weekly, through his investment company Black
Walnut Holdings LLC for an undisclosed price.
Barbey is a member
of the billionaire Barbey family, which made its fortune in
textiles and manufacturing. In 1989, John Barbey started the
Reading Globe and Mitten Manufacturing Company in Pennsylvania.
His son J.E. Barbey took the company, which was then known as
Vanity Fair Silk Mills, public in 1951 and the family still owns
nearly 20% of the company.
The family has also owned a local
Pennsylvania paper, The Reading Eagle, for generations.
Stanley Hubbard - Hubbard Broadcasting
Media mogul
Stanley Hubbard is CEO of Hubbard Broadcasting, which has 13 TV
stations, including a number of ABC and NBC news affiliates in
the Midwest, and 48 radio stations.
In August, Hubbard bought a
stake in PodcastOne, a one-stop shop app for podcasts, through
Hubbard Broadcasting.
Media runs in Hubbard's family; his father
started Minnesota's first commercial TV station in 1923.
Patrick Soon-Shiong - Tribune Publishing Co.
On May 23,
Tribune Publishing Co. announced that L.A. doctor and
pharmaceutical billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong's Nant Capital
was investing $70.5 million into the media company, making Soon-Shiong
the second-largest shareholder.
He is now the vice chairman of
the media company, which owns papers like The Los Angeles Times
and The Chicago Tribune.
In
an interview with CNBC, Soon-Shiong described his investment
as an,
"opportunity to actually transform this newspaper world
into this next generation."
In 2014, Tribune Publishing Co. was
spun out of Tribune Company , which changed its name to Tribune
Media Co.
Tribune Co. had previously been owned by billionaire
real estate investor Sam Zell, who took control of Tribune Co.
in 2007.
Less than a year later, the company went bankrupt. Four
years later, Tribune Co. emerged from bankruptcy after being
bought by Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co and
JPMorgan Chase.
***
Warren Buffett - regional daily papers
Warren
Buffett, as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has invested in a number
of small newspapers and owns about 70 dailies today.
In 2012,
Berkshire Hathaway acquired 63 daily newspapers and weeklies in
Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama from Media
General for $142 million.
Viktor Vekselberg - Gawker
Russian
billionaire Viktor Vekselberg's investment arm, Columbus Nova
Technology Partners, bought a minority stake in Gawker in
January 2016 for an undisclosed amount.
The online media company
took outside funding for the first time in anticipation of legal
fees incurred by a lawsuit brought by wrestler Hulk Hogan,
according to a leaked memo from Gawker founder Nick Denton.
Hogan sued Gawker after it published a sex tape.
In March a jury
awarded Hogan $140 million in damages. Gawker aims to appeal the
ruling.
