Who are the media billionaires who dominate the UK’s democracy?

Almost everything we hear, read or watch in print, online or on our screens in the UK is being shaped by a tiny handful of global media billionaires.

They use this domination to protect their own narrow financial interests rather than the public’s.

At a time when the Canary is facing financial uncertainty, it’s galling to see this media oligarchy ruling the roost.

Fourteen out of the fifteen media billionaires are not based in the UK. Audience figures are for the UK only.

Murdoch

• Billionaire: Rupert Murdoch.
• Nationality: US resident, previously Australian.
• UK Holding Company: News UK.
• Newspapers: the Sun, the Times, the Sunday Times – 33% of UK newspapers.
• Monthly Online Audience: the Sun, 21 million.
• Other Media: Talk TV, Talk Radio and Times Radio.
• Publishing Company: Harper Collins, controls 9% of the UK Book Market.
• News Broadcasting, a division of News UK, also holds a major share of the UK digital radio market.

Harmsworth

• Billionaire: Jonathan Harmsworth.
• Nationality: French non-domiciled, a resident of Monaco.
• UK Holding Company: Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT).
• Newspapers: the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the I and Metro – 43% of UK newspapers.
• Monthly Online Audience: the Mail, 21 million..
• Monthly Online Audience: the Metro, 15 million
• DMG Media, a subsidiary of DMGT, posts over 100 videos to social media platforms every day.

Springer

• Billionaire: Friede Springer.
• Nationality: German.
• UK Holding Company: The Telegraph Media Group, subsidiary of Axel Springer SE.
• Newspapers: the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph – 6% of UK newspapers.
• Monthly Online Audience: 16 million.
• Other Media: Politico, an online political news website.

Marshall

• Billionaire: Paul Marshall.
• Nationality: UK.
• UK Holding Company: All Perspectives Ltd and Paul Marshall.
• Television: GB News.
• Monthly Audience: 3.8 million.
• Other Media: the Spectator magazine, UnHerd, a political news website.

Lebedev

• Billionaire: Yevgeny Lebedev.
• Nationality: Russian – UK.
• UK Holding Company: Independent Digital News & Media Ltd.
• Newspapers: the Independent.
• Monthly Audience: 18 million.
• Other Media: Indy100.

Ellison

• Billionaires: David Ellison and Larry Ellison.
• Nationality: US.
• UK Holding Company: Paramount Skydance Corporation.
• Television: Channel 5.
• Daily Audience: 1.02 million.
• Other Media: Paramount Pictures, CBS (the BBC’s US partner).
• Larry Ellison is the sixth-richest man on Earth.

Roberts

• Billionaire: Brian Roberts.
• Nationality: US.
• UK Holding Company: Sky Group, a subsidiary of Comcast.
• Television / Streaming: Sky, Now UK.
• Monthly Viewing Audience: Sky 33.3 million.
• Monthly Online Audience: Sky News 37 million.
• Sky is Europe’s largest broadcasting corporation.

Musk

• Trillionaire (or just mega-billionaire): Elon Musk.
• Nationality: US, formerly South African.
• Social Media: X.
• Monthly Users: 21 million.
• Musk backs far-right racist Restore Party in the UK.

Zuckerberg

• Billionaire: Mark Zuckerberg.
• Nationality: US.
• UK Holding Company: Meta Platforms.
• Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads.
• Monthly Users: 47 million

Bezos

• Billionaire: Jeff Bezos.
• Nationality: US.
• Streaming Service: Amazon Prime.
• Monthly Audience: 19 million.
• Other Media: Amazon Prime streaming service serves 45% of UK households.

Hastings

• Billionaire: Reed Hastings.
• Nationality: US.
• Streaming Service: Netflix.
• Monthly Audience: 12 million.
• Netflix also controls many of the films shown in the UK through its Hollywood Studios.

Pichai

• Billionaire: Sundar Pichai.
• Nationality: US.
• Online: Google and YouTube.
• Monthly Audience: YouTube 37.5 million.
• Google controls 93% of the UK search engine market.

Zhang

• Billionaire: Zhang Yiming.
• Nationality: Chinese.
• Social Media: TikTok.
• Monthly Audience: 30 million.

Mohn

• Billionaires: Liz Mohn, Christoph Mohn.
• Nationality: German.
• UK Holding Company: Bertelsmann.
• Publishing: Penguin Random House.
• The second largest book publisher in the UK.

Bauer

• Billionaire: Yvonne Bauer.
• Nationality: German.
• UK Holding Company: Bauer Media.
• Commercial Radio: Absolute, Hits Radio, Jazz FM, Kerrang!, KISS, Magic, PlanetRock, Heat Radio.
• Monthly Audience: 97.5 million.
• Other Media: TV Choice and Take a Break, UK’s most popular weekly women’s magazine.
• UK’s largest magazine publisher.

Billionaires concentrate ownership

Nine of the top 15 online sources used for news in the UK are billionaire-owned.

Three US tech-billionaire corporations now hijack two-thirds of UK media advertising, worth over £31bn. This has led to the firing of thousands of UK journalists and the closure of most local independent newspapers.

Bauer and Global own two-thirds of the UK’s national DAB radio stations, and more than 60% of local analogue stations.

Bauer, Global and News Broadcasting (owned by Murdoch publisher News UK) together control more than three-quarters of the UK’s national DAB radio market.

Meta and Google alone grab three-fifths of all UK advertising spend:

giving these two Big Tech companies unrivalled control over how news is found, accessed and funded online.

Just three US firms, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+, account for 75% of all UK video-on-demand subscriptions.

The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign

The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign’s sole aim is to get the Media Sovereignty Act adopted by Parliament. You can read the draft of the Act here, but in brief, it has five measures:

1. Bans foreign media ownership. Just 3 foreign billionaires own 77% of UK newspapers.
2. Bans the concentration of UK national media ownership by one person or corporation. Just 7 media billionaires own almost all UK newspapers & social media.
3. Funds independent and local media with a Social Media Levy. Over two-thirds of all UK media advertising is siphoned off by three huge US tech-billionaire corporations, leading to 1,000s of UK journalists being fired and the decimation of UK national and local news production.
4. Requires national media to be under the remit of the statutory regulator. The billionaire media refused to join the independent media regulator Impress after the phone-hacking scandals. The billionaire media instead “self-regulate” via largely toothless organisation IPSO.
5. Requires “dark-money funded think-tanks” that are covered by the media to declare donations in real time. Think-tanks are privately funded policy institutions seeking to influence government policy. Currently, many are corruptly dark-money funded by foreign billionaires, oil corporations and others to run propaganda campaigns to manipulate UK government policy in favour of their billionaire vested interests.

Featured image via the Canary