Word: kemsley
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Died. Viscount Kemsley, 84, one of Britain's most powerful press lords until he sold most of his empire to Lord Thomson for $14 million in 1959; following an asthma attack; in Monte Carlo. Born James Gomer Berry, son of a Welsh town alderman, he and his brother William started their careers at the turn of the century with a sixpence monthly, Advertising World; with their profits they built a publishing empire that grew to 70-odd magazines and 31 newspapers, including London's Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times...
...yeah. When he ran out of papers to buy in Canada, Thomson shifted overseas and bought Edinburgh's venerable Scotsman. He took advertising off the front page and perked up the news coverage. He waded into television, setting up Scotland's first commercial channel. He bought Lord Kemsley's newspaper chain in 1959 and found himself on Fleet Street as the proprietor of the august Sunday Times...
More Than a Rich Sport. This quick action was typical of a newcomer who, since invading England in 1959, has kept Fleet Street jumping. Thomson picked up dozens of newspapers of all sorts, from Scotland's Caithness Courier (circ. 6,000) to England's big Kemsley chain. Editors and publishers goggled at the sight of the gregarious Canuck who told risque stories in a deliberate and successful effort to crack the British reserve, and rode in a chauffeur-driven Cadillac to the subway tube-to be met at the other end by a chauffeur-driven Rolls...
Thomson has a sort of small-boy wonder about his own success. "Have you ever heard of anything bigger?" he asked while marveling at his own audacity in paying $14 million for a two-thirds interest in England's big Kemsley chain. But he keeps his adult head about him. Horrified to discover that the 40-page Sunday Times was turning away ads for lack of space, Thomson gave orders to add eight pages, intends to go to 64 if necessary...
...even better newspaper sense : they are members of the British "popular press," which peddles sex and sensation for news. "I could only hope to keep them on as salacious papers," he said. "Frankly I don't want to get in that kind of rat race." Under Thomson, the Kemsley chain, once starchily conservative, has drifted towards the middle of the road. There Thomson is wooing Britain's rising mid dle class. He has added a culture-packed Saturday supplement to several of his dailies, beefed up news columns, hired cor respondents on the Continent to expand foreign coverage...