John de Mol

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For his son, the actor, see Johnny de Mol.

John de Mol

Born	Johannes Hendrikus Hubert de Mol April 24, 1955 (1955-04-24) (age 53) Hilversum, Netherlands
Residence	Blaricum, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Net worth	▬ US$ 2.2 billion ^[1]
Known for	Founding Endemol Founding Talpa Media Group
Spouse	Willeke Alberti (1976–1980)
Children	Johnny de Mol
Relatives	Linda de Mol

The launch of a commercial online radio platform by John de Mol (left) and Jan Peter Balkenende

Johannes "John" Hendrikus Hubert de Mol (born April 24, 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 is one of the men behind production companies Endemol and Talpa.

1 Endemol
2 Talpa
3 Private life
4 See also
5 References

[edit] Endemol

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 his company merged with Joop van den Ende TV-Producties into Endemol, but it still functioned on its own. He also produced Love Letters, 1 vs. 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 May 2007 De Mol returned as one of the main share holders of Endemol together with the Italian company Mediaset of Silvio Berlusconi in a 2.6 billion Euro deal.

[edit] Talpa

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.

The name Talpa is the Latin word for mole (the animal), mol in Dutch, which refers to the surname of John de Mol. Talpa had its official opening night on August 13, 2005. First Talpa only broadcasted in the evenings, since it shared its channel with Nickelodeon. Since December 16, 2006 Talpa has its own channel and broadcasts 24/7.

After a while, the channel was named: Tien. But after bad watch results, Tien was sold to the RTL group, who named the channel RTL8. The broadcasting rights for the Eredivisie were sold to RTL too, and are now broadcasted on RTL4.

[edit] Private life

De Mol was formerly married to singer and actress Willeke Alberti. The actor Johnny de Mol is their son.

From 1979 to 1982, he had a love affair with Marga Scheide, member of the girl group Luv'.

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.

John's sister, actress Linda de Mol, appears in and presents some of his programmes, including the original Dutch version of Deal or No Deal. She also presented one of Endemols first productions The DJ Kat Show.