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 NWSA -0.3%
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 1% 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.
Condé Nast, a unit of Advance
Publications, publishes magazines including,
-
Wired
-
Vanity Fair
-
The New
Yorker
-
Vogue
"Si" stepped down as
chairman of Condé 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
-
six other
daily newspapers
-
more than a
dozen non-daily publications
-
14 broadcast
television stations
-
one local
cable channel
-
59 radio
stations
Jeff Bezos
- The Washington Post
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
bought
The Washington Post for $250
million in 2013. Since beginning his run for president, Trump
has accused Bezos of using the Post to get tax breaks for Amazon
and sending reporters after Trump.
Bezos denied the
allegations at a tech conference at the Washington Post in May.
The Post's reporters
also defended themselves, saying that the paper has covered
Amazon's tax problems and that the Post's editorial board's
stance on taxing online retailers hasn't changed since Bezos
bought the paper.
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 outed 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.
Carlos Slim Helu - The New York Times
The New York Times published an
article last Friday criticizing the power that billionaires
wield over media companies.
One ultra-wealthy
media investor not mentioned in the story:
Mexican
billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, who owns the largest
individual stake in the Times.
Slim more than
doubled his stake in The New York Times in June 2015 to
approximately 17% of the media company.
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.
