Lord Thomson of Fleet

Roy Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet Street, the late Canadian media mogul, was a radio salesman who solved the problem of not being able to market his merchandise due to a lack of local radio stations by starting his own in 1931. The Canadian radio industry suffered due to its proximity to the high-powered American stations just over the border, and because Canadians were allocated less efficacious frequencies when the radio spectrum was divvied up. In 1934, after starting two more radio stations, Thomson moved into print media, buying his first newspaper in a small mining town in northern Ontario. It was the newspaper empire that made Thomson's fortune and led to his ennoblement in Britain. (As Conrad Black so famously proved, Canadians like their neighbors to the south cannot receive titles; Black, now styled Lord Black of Crossharbour, like Thomson and Lord Beaverbrook before him, had to repatriate himself to the UK to accept his title). Thomson, and his son Kenneth, the current Lord Thomson, acquired many newspapers, including 'The Times' of London (which the first Lord Thomson saved from financial ruin, and was rewarded with a peerage), eventually creating the greatest media empire in Canada. Kenneth, the second Lord Thomson of Fleet Street, eventually sold off the newspapers to reposition Thomson Corp. as a digital company in the new millennium. Lord Thomson retains a 69% stake in Thomson Corp. which racked up US$8.1 billion in sales in 2004. The media empire, which is now chaired by his son David, who took over in 2002, is an international electronic media and information services giant. Divesting itself of its 54 trade publications for $350 million in 2004, it is now even more entrenched in new media, as it acquired the bond-trading platform TradeWeb for $385 million as it moves into financial services software. The current Lord Thomson, who lives in London, is the richest Canadian in the world, with a fortune estimated by Forbes at US$17.9 billion. He paid a record $76.2 million for Peter Paul Rubens's "Massacre of the Innocents" in 2002. He donated over $300 million worth of paintings to the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2002, and pledged $50 million for expanding the galleries in 2003. A major concert hall/performing arts house in Toronto, Roy Thomson Hall, was dedicated in 1982.