Wordblog

Since the Times passed from the Thomson family to Rupert Murdoch in 1981 we have tended to forget about the media empire founded by Roy Thomson, the Canadian who came to Britain and developed a media empire.

Suddenly the Thomson family business, based in Canada, is in the UK news again, making a bid approach to Reuters in the same week as Murdoch moved to buy Dow Jones.

Rupert Murdoch and Roy Thomson, both started by buying a single newspaper in their home countries, moved abroad and changed their citizenship as their businesses developed.

The Australian, Murdoch is now an American citizen and 73 on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires. Thomson took Biritsh citizenship and became Lord Thomson of Fleet. His grandson David, with his family, is number 10 in the Forbes list, worth $22bn from the control of information and media businesses.

While Thomson does not own newspapers or broadcasters in the UK now it has developed into a powerful electronic information business in the legal, financial, tax, science and healthcare areas. The family also has a 40% share in a primarily TV business which owns the Toronoto Globe and Mail.

Writing in the Guardian today, Emily Bell says: “Murdoch, now 76, does not just want to leave a business empire to the next generation of his family, he wants to leave a digital empire.”

Roy Thomson passed on a media empire which his son and grandson have turned into a digital empire. Perhaps there is a lesson in that for Murdoch.