John de Mol Jr.

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John de Mol (born 24 April, 1955 in Hilversum) is a Dutch media tycoon and billionaire. In 2005 Forbes magazine named him as one of the 500 richest people in the world. [1]

De Mol, a well known personality in the Netherlands, acquired his fortune producing television programmes. In 1997-1999 he developed the highly popular reality television series Big Brother with his own production company John de Mol Produkties. In 1994 this merged company with Joop van den Ende TV-Producties into Endemol, but it still functioned on its own. He also produced Love Letters, 1 versus 100 and Deal or No Deal (Miljoenenjacht) for Endemol. De Mol sold his share of Endemol in 2000 to Telefonica, but continued to serve as creative director until 2004.

In 2005 de Mol founded a new television channel Talpa, which owns the broadcasting rights for Dutch premier league football and also produces the popular show Expedition Robinson. A number of the previously mentioned programmes now appear on Talpa. John's sister, actress Linda de Mol, appears in and presents some of the programmes, including the original Dutch version of Deal or No Deal. Another part of Talpa is a production house, with which De Mol has gone back to his roots. He is actively participating in it himself.

De Mol was formerly married to Willeke Alberti; the actor Johnny de Mol is their son.

Outside of television, de Mol controls a large private equity fund which owned significant shares of auto manufacturer Spyker Cars, football team Manchester United and telecommunications company Versatel.

His name literally means "John the Mole", and the name of his Talpa TV channel is a play on the Latin name for the genus of animals which includes the common European mole.

According to Het Financieele Dagblad in june 2006, John de Mol is contemplating to buy back the 77%-share of Endemol from Telefonica, together with the Italian company Mediaset of Silvio Berlusconi.

References

  • ^ Forbes.com's page on John