Richard Desmond
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Clive Desmond (born 8 December 1951) is a British publisher, current owner of Express Newspapers and founder of Northern and Shell plc. Express Newspapers publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Star on Sunday and Daily Star. Northern and Shell was notorious for publishing dozens of pornographic titles, such as Big Ones, Skinny and Wriggly, Forum, Posh Housewives and Asian Babes, prior to their sale to Remnant Media in 2004. Despite selling his magazines, he us still the owner of the most popular pornographic television channels in the UK, the Fantasy Channel and Red Hot TV.
[edit] Personal life
From a Jewish background, Desmond grew up in north London and left school at 14. His first job was for Thomson Newspapers, working in classified advertisements. He moved on to another company and by the age of 21 owned two record shops. He acquired an interest in publishing and in 1974 published a magazine called International Musician.
Desmond currently lives in north London.
[edit] Publishing career
In 1983 he published a British version of the American pornographic magazine Penthouse. Northern & Shell was the first company to move to the revamped Docklands and the Princess Royal opened the offices. When the company moved to the Northern & Shell Tower Prince Philip did the honours. Desmond's biggest publishing deal was the launch of celebrity magazine OK! in 1993.
Desmond attracted controversy over his £100,000 donation to the Labour Party.[1] Several prominent Labour members, including Clare Short, broke ranks to question whether the party should be accepting money from a publisher of pornographic magazines.[2]
After buying Express Newspapers in 2000 for £125m,[3] Desmond became embroiled in a bitter feud with Viscount Rothermere, publisher of the Daily Express rival, the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail ran several articles describing Desmond as a pornographer and Private Eye christened him "Dirty Desmond".
In April 2004, the Daily Express shifted its support from Labour to the Conservatives. On the same day Desmond caused a scandal by accusing the Daily Telegraph, which was then considering accepting a takeover offer by the German Axel Springer group, of giving in to Nazis.[4] Desmond allegedly harangued The Daily Telegraph's chief executive and associates in faux German at a business meeting and imitated Adolf Hitler, before erupting in a tirade of four-letter words.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ "Blair faces backlash over Desmond donation", BBC, May 13, 2002.
- ^ "Desmond donation wrong - minister", BBC, May 24, 2002.
- ^ Jorn Madslien. "Profile: Richard Desmond", BBC, February 12, 2006.
- ^ a b "Desmond taunts Telegraph in 'Nazi' tirade", Media Guardian, Guardian, April 22, 2004.
