John de Mol

:"For his son, the actor, see Johnny de Mol."Infobox Person
name = John de Mol


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birth_name = Johannes Hendrikus Hubert de Mol
birth_date = birth date and age|1955|04|24
birth_place = Hilversum, Netherlands
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residence = Blaricum, Netherlands
nationality = Dutch
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known_for = Founding Endemol Founding Talpa Media Group
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networth = steady US$ 2.2 billion [cite web
title = #432 John de Mol
work = [http://www.forbes.com/ www.forbes.com]
publisher = Forbes
date = 2007-08-03
url = http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/10/07billionaires_John-de-Mol_FDMS.html
accessdate = 2007-08-28 ]
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spouse = Willeke Alberti (1976–1980)
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children = Johnny de Mol
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relatives = Linda de Mol


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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.ref|Forbes.com De Mol is one of the men behind production companies Endemol and Talpa.

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.

Talpa

In 2005 de Mol founded a new television channel Talpa, which acquired the broadcasting rights for Dutch premier league football and also produced the popular show "Expedition Robinson". A number of the previously mentioned programmes appeared 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 had its own channel and broadcasted 24/7.

After a while, the channel was named: Tien. But after bad watch results, Tien was sold to the RTL group in 2007, who named the channel RTL8. The broadcasting rights for the Eredivisie were sold to RTL too, and match summaries were broadcasted on RTL4 until the end of the 2007/08 season.

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.

ee also

*List of Dutch by net worth

References

* [http://www.forbes.com/static/bill2005/LIRFDMS.html?passListId=10&passYear=2005&passListType=Person&uniqueId=FDMS&datatype=Person Forbes.com's page on John de Mol]