A media proprietor or media mogul is a person who controls, either through personal ownership or a via dominant position in any media enterprise a large amount of published media, consumed by a large number of individuals. Those with significant control of a large company in the mass media may also be called a tycoon, baron, or business magnate.

The figure of the media proprietor first became prominent in the 19th century with the development of mass circulation newspapers. In the 20th century the definition of proprietorship expanded to include ownership of radio and television networks, as well as film studios, publishing houses and more recently internet and other forms of multimedia companies. The term "press baron" was replaced by "media" baron, reflecting this and the term "media mogul" was popularized.

Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG (born 11 March 1931) is an Australian American media mogul. Murdoch became managing director of Australia's News Limited, inherited from his father, in 1952. He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of global media holding company the News Corporation, the world's second-largest media conglomerate.

In the 1950s and '60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World followed closely by The Sun. He moved to New York in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985. In 1981, he bought The Times, his first British broadsheet.

In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK printing operations in Wapping, causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989) and The Wall Street Journal (2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000 Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.

Ian Robert Maxwell MC (10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament (MP), who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire. His death revealed huge discrepancies in his companies' finances, including the Mirror Group pension fund, which Maxwell had fraudulently misappropriated.

Robert Maxwell was born Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch into a poorYiddish-speaking Jewish family in the small town of Slatinské Doly (now Solotvino, Ukraine) in the easternmost province of pre-World War II Czechoslovakia. His parents were Mechel Hoch and Hannah Slomowitz. He had six siblings. In 1939, the area was reclaimed by Hungary. Most members of his family died in Auschwitz after Hungary was occupied in 1944 by its former ally, Nazi Germany, but he had already escaped to France. In Marseille he joined the Czechoslovak army in exile in May 1940.

After the defeat in France and the retreat to Great Britain, Maxwell took part in the protest against the leadership of the Czechoslovak army and, together with 500 other soldiers, was transferred to the British Pioneer Corps, and later to the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1943. He was then involved in action across Europe, from the Normandy beaches to Berlin, and achieved the rank of sergeant. He gained a commission in 1945 and was promoted to captain. In January 1945 he received the Military Cross from Field Marshal Montgomery. It was during this time that British Intelligence changed his name several times, finally settling on Ian Robert Maxwell.^{[citation needed]}

Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was for a time the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, claiming to be raped at age nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Robert John "Bob" Carr (born 28 September 1947) is an Australian politician. He has been a Labor member of the Australian Senate representing the state of New South Wales and Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2012. He previously served as the Premier of New South Wales from 4 April 1995 to 3 August 2005. He holds the record for the longest continuous service as Premier of NSW. Only Sir Henry Parkes served longer, although Parkes held the office on five separate occasions.

Carr was born in the Sydney suburb of Matraville, to Edward and Phyllis Carr. He was educated at Matraville High School from which he graduated as dux in 1964. He was the first person in his family to finish high school, and became interested in a career in politics in his teenage years. While still a 15 year old student at school, he joined the local branch of the Australian Labor Party. He would go on to become the President of the New South Wales branch and then the national President of Young Labor in 1970 and 1972 respectively. He completed his tertiary education at the University of New South Wales, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with honours in history.