John de Mol (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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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. 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 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.

Tien, as the channel is now known, has recently been sold to the RTL group. Including both the broadcasting rights for the Eredivisie, and the Netherlands' biggest radio station Radio 538.

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.

See also

• List of Dutch by net worth

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