Northern & Shell

Northern & Shell Network Ltd

Type	Publishing and Television
Founded	December 1974
Founder(s)	Richard Desmond
Headquarters	City of London, UK
Owner(s)	Richard Desmond
Website	www.northernandshell.co.uk

Front page of the Daily Express, one of Northern & Shell's publications.

Northern & Shell is a British publishing and television group. The holding company name is "Northern and Shell Network Ltd". Launched and founded in December 1974 and currently owned by Richard Desmond, it publishes the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, and the magazines OK!, New!, and Star. Northern & Shell also owns three entertainment television channels: Channel 5, 5* and 5USA. The company also owns Portland TV,^[1] which owns the adult TV channels; Television X, Red Hot TV, and others.

History

Desmond founded Northern and Shell in 1974 and launched a magazine called International Musician and Recording World. In 1983, Northern and Shell obtained the license to publish Penthouse in the United Kingdom which led to its publishing a range of adult titles,^[2] Asian Babes among them.^[3][4] These titles were later sold in 2004. It 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.

In November 2000 Northern & Shell acquired Express Newspapers from United News & Media for £125m,^[5] enlarging the group to include the Daily and Sunday Express titles, the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday (which Desmond started), and the Irish Star (owned jointly with the Irish Independent group). The Daily and Sunday Express each sell around 700,000 copies per issue.^[6]

Northern & Shell also publishes a wide range of magazines including the celebrity weekly, OK!, started as a monthly in 1993, which is the largest weekly magazine in the world with a readership in excess of 31 million^{[citation needed]}.

On 23 July 2010, Northern & Shell bought Channel 5, 5* and 5USA for €125 million (£103.5 million) from the RTL Group.^[7]

References

1. ^ http://www.portlandtv.co.uk/aboutus.html
2. ^ "About Northern & Shell". Northern and Shell. N&S Network. http://www.northernandshell.com/about/index.php. Retrieved 2006-12-22. 
3. ^ Jane Arthurs, Jean Grimshaw, "Women's bodies: discipline and transgression", Continuum International Publishing Group, 1999, ISBN 0304339636, pp.191-192
4. ^ Clarissa Smith, "One for the girls!: the pleasures and practices of reading women's porn", European Communication Research and Education Association Series, Intellect Books, 2007, ISBN 1841501646, p.57
5. ^ Jorn Madslien (12 February 2006). "Profile: Richard Desmond". BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3479581.stm. 
6. ^ "ABC Circulation Figures". Audit Bureau of Circulations. http://www.abc.org.uk. Retrieved 2009-02-04.  (December 2008)
7. ^ "RTL Group sells UK broadcaster Five" (Press release). RTL Group. 23 July 2010. http://www.rtlgroup.com/www/htm/home_news.aspx?ID=C57D4206AF294A979A24C3EE4270E175. Retrieved 24 July 2010. 

External links

• Northern & Shell company website
• Channel 5
• Daily and Sunday Express
• Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday
• OK! Magazine
• OK! USA
• new! Magazine
• Star Magazine
• Tripideas: The Express Newspapers Travel website
• Daily Express Property website
• Daily Express Franchising website
• Portland TV