Almost everything we hear, read or watch in print, online or on our screens in Britain is being shaped by a tiny handful of global media billionaires.<\/p>\n
It is often argued that they use this domination to protect their narrow financial interests rather than the public\u2019s.<\/p>\n
According to data from The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign, nine of the top fifteen online news sources in the UK are billionaire-owned.<\/p>\n
Today, the Media Sovereignty Act Campaign has published \u201cThe UK Media Billionaire List 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the fifteen media billionaires listed, all but one are based abroad. Just 3 non-dom media billionaires own 82% of the UK newspaper market.<\/p>\n
Caspar Hughes, Co-director of the Media Sovereignty Act Campaign said: \u201cIt is time to end UK media billionairism for good. We need to take back control of our media from the 0.0001% and spread media ownership across British society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Donnachadh McCarthy, Co-director of the Media Sovereignty Act Campaign added: \u201cWe cannot have a free and fair democracy if media ownership is captured by a tiny foreign billionaire elite and their narrow vested interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is time for Parliament to end the media billionairist domination of our democracy and urgently pass the Media Sovereignty Act.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following is the MSAC\u2019s 2026 list of media billionaires dominating UK democracy and culture.<\/p>\n
1. Murdoch<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Rupert Murdoch<\/p>\n
Nationality: US resident, previously Australian.<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: News UK<\/p>\n
Newspapers: The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times \u2013 33% of UK newspapers.<\/p>\n
Monthly Online Audience: The Sun, 21 million.<\/p>\n
Other Media: Talk TV, Talk Radio and Times Radio.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Publishing Company: Harper Collins, controls 9% of the UK book market.\u00a0<\/p>\n
News Broadcasting, a division of News UK, also holds a major share of the UK digital radio market.<\/p>\n
2. Harmsworth<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Jonathan Harmsworth<\/p>\n
Nationality: French non-domiciled, a resident of Monaco.<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT)<\/p>\n
Newspapers: The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, The I and Metro \u2013 43% of UK newspapers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monthly Online Audience: The Mail, 21 million.<\/p>\n
Monthly Online Audience: The Metro, 15 million<\/p>\n
DMG Media, a subsidiary of DMGT, posts more than 100 videos to social media platforms every day.<\/p>\n
3. Springer<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Friede Springer<\/p>\n
Nationality: German<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: The Telegraph Media Group, a subsidiary of Axel Springer SE.<\/p>\n
Newspapers: The Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph \u2013 6% of UK newspapers.<\/p>\n
Monthly Online Audience: 16 million.<\/p>\n
Other Media: Politico, an online political news website.<\/p>\n
4. Marshall<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Paul Marshall<\/p>\n
Nationality:British<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: All Perspectives Ltd and Paul Marshall<\/p>\n
Television: GB News<\/p>\n
Monthly Audience: 3.8 million<\/p>\n
Other Media: The Spectator, UnHerd, an online political news website.<\/p>\n
5. Lebedev<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Yevgeny Lebedev<\/p>\n
Nationality: Russian \u2013 British<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: Independent Digital News & Media Ltd<\/p>\n
Newspapers: The Independent<\/p>\n
Monthly Audience: 18 million.<\/p>\n
Other Media: Indy100.<\/p>\n
6. Ellison<\/p>\n
Billionaires: David Ellison and Larry Ellison<\/p>\n
Nationality: American<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: Paramount Skydance Corporation<\/p>\n
Television: Channel 5.<\/p>\n
Daily Audience: 1.02 million<\/p>\n
Other Media: Paramount Pictures, CBS (the BBC\u2019s US partner).<\/p>\n
Larry Ellison is the sixth-richest man on Earth.<\/p>\n
7. Roberts<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Brian Roberts<\/p>\n
Nationality: American<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: Sky Group, a subsidiary of Comcast.<\/p>\n
Television \/ Streaming: Sky, Now UK.<\/p>\n
Monthly Viewing Audience: Sky 33.3 million<\/p>\n
Monthly Online Audience: Sky News 37 million.<\/p>\n
Sky is Europe\u2019s largest broadcasting corporation.<\/p>\n
8. Musk<\/p>\n
Trillionaire: Elon Musk\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nationality: American, formerly South African.<\/p>\n
Social Media: X.<\/p>\n
Monthly Users: 21 million<\/p>\n
Musk backs far-right racist Restore Party in the UK.<\/p>\n
9. Zuckerberg<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Mark Zuckerberg\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nationality: American.<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: Meta Platforms.<\/p>\n
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads.<\/p>\n
Monthly Users: 47 million<\/p>\n
10. Bezos<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Jeff Bezos<\/p>\n
Nationality: American.<\/p>\n
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime.<\/p>\n
Monthly Audience: 19 million.<\/p>\n
Other Media: Billionaire Jeff Bezos (American) owns Amazon Prime Video streaming service, which serves 45% of UK households.<\/p>\n
11. Reed Hastings<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Reed Hastings<\/p>\n
Nationality: American.<\/p>\n
Streaming Service: Netflix\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monthly Audience: 12 million<\/p>\n
Netflix also controls many of the films shown in the UK through its Hollywood Studios.<\/p>\n
12. Pichai<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Sundar Pichai<\/p>\n
Nationality: American<\/p>\n
Online: Google and YouTube\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monthly Audience: YouTube 37.5 million<\/p>\n
Google controls 93% of the UK search engine market.<\/p>\n
13. Yiming<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Zhang Yiming<\/p>\n
Nationality: Chinese<\/p>\n
Social Media: TikTok<\/p>\n
Monthly Audience: 30 million.<\/p>\n
14. Mohn<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Mohn family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nationality: German<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: Bertelsmann<\/p>\n
Publishing: Penguin Random House<\/p>\n
The 2nd largest book publisher in the UK.<\/p>\n
15. Bauer<\/p>\n
Billionaire: Yvonne Bauer<\/p>\n
Nationality: German.<\/p>\n
UK Holding Company: Bauer Media<\/p>\n
Commercial Radio: Absolute, Hits Radio, Jazz FM, Kerrang!, KISS, Magic, Planet Rock, Heat Radio.<\/p>\n
Monthly Audience: 97.5 million<\/p>\n
Other Media: UK\u2019s largest magazine publisher, including TV Choice and Take a Break, UK\u2019s most popular weekly women\u2019s magazine.<\/p>\n
In Common is definitely NOT controlled by billionaires! We are not for profit and rely on donations from readers to keep the site running. We are currently crowdfunding to pay our annual bills and further running costs. For more information and to make a donation please click here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost everything we hear, read or watch in print, online or on our screens in Britain is being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[9945,13,374,3053],"class_list":["post-66758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-billionaire","tag-britain","tag-british","tag-media"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116779647311788030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}