UK Media Billionaires List 2026
Author: Donnachadh McCarthy
Published 18th June 2026 By The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign
Who Are The Media Billionaires Who Dominate Britain’s Democracy?
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.
They use this domination to protect their own narrow financial interests rather than the public’s.
Fourteen out of the fifteen media billionaires are not based in the UK!
Murdoch
Billionaire: Rupert Murdoch
Nationality: US resident, previously Australian.
UK Holding Company: News UK
Newspapers: The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times – 33% of UK newspapers
Monthly Online Audience: The Sun, 21 million
Other Media: Talk TV, Talk Radio and Times Radio
Publishing Company: Harper Collins, controls 9% of the UK Book Market
News Broadcasting, a division of News UK, also holds a major share of the UK digital radio market.
Harmsworth
Billionaire: Jonathan Harmsworth
Nationality: French non-domiciled, a resident of Monaco
UK Holding Company: Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT)
Newspapers: The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, The I and Metro – 43% of UK newspapers
Monthly Online Audience: The Mail, 21 million.
Monthly Online Audience: The Metro, 15 million
DMG Media, a subsidiary of DMGT, post over 100 videos to social media platforms every day.
Springer
Billionaire: Friede Springer
Nationality: German
UK Holding Company: The Telegraph Media Group, subsidiary of Axel Springer SE
Newspapers: The Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph – 6% of UK newspapers
Monthly Online Audience: 16 million
Other Media: Politico, an online political news website.
Marshall
Billionaire: Paul Marshall
Nationality:British
UK Holding Company: All Perspectives Ltd and Paul Marshall
Television: GB News
Monthly Audience: 3.8 million
Other Media: The Spectator, UnHerd, an online political news website.
Lebedev
Billionaire: Yevgeny Lebedev
Nationality: Russian – British
UK Holding Company: Independent Digital News & Media Ltd
Newspapers: The Independent
Monthly Audience: 18 million
Other Media: Indy100.
Ellison
Billionaires: David Ellison and Larry Ellison
Nationality: American
UK Holding Company: Paramount Skydance Corporation
Television: Channel 5
Daily Audience: 1.02 million
Other Media: Paramount Pictures, CBS (the BBC’s US partner).
Larry Ellison is the sixth-richest man on Earth.
Roberts
Billionaire: Brian Roberts
Nationality: American
UK Holding Company: Sky Group, a subsidiary of Comcast
Television / Streaming: Sky, Now UK
Monthly Viewing Audience: Sky 33.3 million
Monthly Online Audience: Sky News 37 million
Sky is Europe’s largest broadcasting corporation.
Musk
Trillionaire: Elon Musk
Nationality: American, formerly South African
Social Media: X
Monthly Users: 21 million
Musk backs far-right racist Restore Party in the UK.
Zuckerberg
Billionaire: Mark Zuckerberg
Nationality: American
UK Holding Company: Meta Platforms
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads
Monthly Users: 47 million
Bezos
Billionaire: Jeff Bezos
Nationality: American
Streaming Service: Amazon Prime
Monthly Audience: 19 million
Other Media: Amazon Prime Video streaming service serves 45% of UK households.
Reed Hastings
Billionaire: Reed Hastings
Nationality: American.
Streaming Service: Netflix
Monthly Audience: 12 million
Netflix also controls many of the films shown in the UK through its Hollywood Studios.
Pichai
Billionaire: Sundar Pichai
Nationality: American
Online: Google and YouTube
Monthly Audience: YouTube 37.5 million
Google controls 93% of the UK search engine market.
Yiming
Billionaire: Zhang Yiming
Nationality: Chinese
Social Media: TikTok
Monthly Audience: 30 million
Mohn
Billionaires: Liz Mohn, Christoph Mohn
Nationality: German
UK Holding Company: Bertelsmann
Publishing: Penguin Random House
The second largest book publisher in the UK.
Bauer
Billionaire: Yvonne Bauer
Nationality: German.
UK Holding Company: Bauer Media
Commercial Radio: Absolute, Hits Radio, Jazz FM, Kerrang!, KISS, Magic, PlanetRock, Heat Radio.
Monthly Audience: 97.5 million in the UK
Other Media: TV Choice and Take a Break, UK’s most popular weekly women’s magazine.
UK’s largest magazine publisher.
UK Online Billionaire Owned News
Nine of the top 15 online sources used for news in the UK are billionaire-owned.
US Billionaire Advertising Heist
Three US tech-billionaire corporations now hijack two-thirds of UK media advertising, worth over £31 billion. Leading to the firing of 1,000s of UK journalists and the closure of most local independent newspapers.
Other Billionaire Market Domination Facts
Bauer and Global own two-thirds of the UK’s national DAB radio stations, and more than 60% of local analogue stations.
Bauer, Global and News Broadcasting (owned by Murdoch publisher News UK) together control more than three-quarters of the UK’s national DAB radio market.
US Billionaire Corporations Bankrupting UK News
Meta and Google alone grab three-fifths of all UK advertising spend, “giving these two Big Tech companies unrivalled control over how news is found, accessed and funded online.”
Just three US firms – Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ – account for 75% of all UK video-on-demand subscriptions.
Notes:
- The Media Sovereignty Act Campaign’s sole aim is to get the Media Sovereignty Act adopted by Parliament.
Link to full draft: mediasovereignty.org/full-draft/ - The Parliamentary Petition backing the adoption of the Act has already attracted over 18,000 signatures, and the government has issued its response after the 10,000-signature target was reached.
Link to Labour government response: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/760061 - The campaign is currently fundraising for a YouGov Poll on the British public’s views on ending media billionaires and support for the Act: crowdfunder.co.uk/…/crowdfunder-for-polling…
- Just 3 non-dom media billionaires own 82% of the UK newspaper market.
- Some of the research was sourced from the excellent Media Reform Coalition report on who owns UK media: mediareform.org.uk/resources/reports
The Media Sovereignty Act has five measures:
- Bans foreign media ownership.
Just 3 foreign billionaires own 77% of UK newspapers. - Bans the concentration of UK national media ownership by one person or corporation.
Just 7 media billionaires own almost all UK newspapers & social media. - Funds independent and local media with a Social Media Levy.
Over two-thirds of all UK media advertising is siphoned off by three huge US tech-billionaire corporations, leading to 1,000s of UK journalists being fired and the decimation of UK national and local news production. - Requires national media to be under the remit of the statutory regulator.
The billionaire media refused to join the independent media regulator Impress after the phone-hacking scandals. The billionaire media instead “self-regulate.” - Requires “dark-money funded think-tanks” that are covered by the media to declare donations in real time.
Think-tanks are privately funded policy institutions seeking to influence government policy. Currently, many are corruptly dark-money funded by foreign billionaires, oil corporations and others to run propaganda campaigns to manipulate UK government policy in favour of their billionaire vested interests.