Word: thomson
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Bulky, cherry-cheeked Roy Herbert Thomson, 66, was once described by a female employee as "a money-grasping old goat, but a dear old goat at that." In London, where he now headquarters, he has been variously called "the Henry Ford of journalism" (by the Observer), a "ruthless hustler with a Midas touch" (by the Communist Daily Worker) and "a religious man." This last description comes from Thomson himself, who adds: "It's against my religious principles to lose money...
Whatever anyone may think of him, one fact about Roy Thomson stands beyond dispute: he owns 76 newspapers in six countries, more than anyone else in the world. Only 21 years out of the Canadian North country, he invaded London last year. Fleet Street, which has seen many a more flamboyant press lord come and go, now realizes that Thomson means to stay. Fleet Street is in trouble. Only last month the venerable Liberal News Chronicle and its companion, the Star, folded for the simple reason that they could not make money-despite a combined circulation of more than...
...Else?" Thomson is different from the usual Fleet Street press lord who goes after power, prestige, a peerage or who, like another transplanted Canadian, Lord Beaverbrook, wants to exhort ("I run the paper purely for the purpose of making propaganda," Press Lord Beaverbrook once said). Thomson expects to earn almost $20 million this year on his $130 million empire. This prospect delights him. "A sound financial front is the most important thing in a newspaper," he said last week. "Why else would you be in the news business? Either it's because you're mad at somebody...
...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...
...Jeez, There's Nothing . . ." Roy Thomson is fond of saying: "We can expand indefinitely." Son of a Toronto barber, Thomson at 24 had managed to accumulate, and then blow, a small fortune in Saskatchewan land speculation. In 1929 he went to North Bay, Ont. to sell radios, Branched into broadcasting to push his product and in 1934, for $200 down and $200 a month, bought a moribund weekly called the Timmins Press. One of the unfledged publisher's first moves was to send dime to each of 100 small U.S. dailies, hen the copies came in, Thomson read...