Back on the number one spot of MediaGuardian’s annual ranking of the 100 most influential people in British media is Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC. Apple chief Steve Jobs is in second place and News Corp.’s chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch in third.
The 48-year-old Thompson has “led the BBC from the aftershock of the Hutton report to the most important license fee settlement in its history,” MediaGuardian said.
Jobs who rose to second place after being sixth in last year’s ranking has revolutionized television viewing habits by inking content deals for the iPod. He is also the biggest individual shareholder in The Walt Disney Company following its acquisition of Pixar.
MediaGuardian said of Murchoch, the 75-year-old mogul: “Old media or new, Murdoch’s political influence appears undimmed.”
Google’s co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page rose from number 9 to number 4 on the list, with the newspaper noting, “So ubiquitous has Google become that it has hard to imagine what we ever did without it. The ultimate convenience research tool, its founders Brin and Page are in the midst of transforming it from a search engine into a technology giant.”
Rising from 19 to 5 on the list is Channel 4’s chief executive Andy Duncan, who has “overseen an unprecedented year of growth and ambition,” MediaGuardian said.
Rounding out the top ten are ITV chief Charles Allen who dropped from fourth place; BBC Chairman Michael Grade, who shared the top spot with Thompson last year; the BBC’s director of television, Jana Bennett, up from last year’s 36 ranking; Microsoft founder Bill Gates, a new entry at 9; and Associated Newspapers’ editor-in-chief, Paul Dacre.
Other television executives on the list include Channel 4’s Kevin Lygo (14), BSkyB’s James Murdoch (15), ITV’s Simon Shaps (16) and BBC News’s Helen Boaden (17).
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