How many of the original list of media power players have survived? For all the major changes in the industry since July 2001, 11 of the original squad are in the 2015 list – and, fascinatingly, most of them are doing the same job or something very similar.
Rupert Murdoch (then No 1) and Martin Sorrell (5) are still running their respective empires. Alan Parker (79) is the sole ever-present from PR. Richard Desmond (29) is a press baron, as he was in 2001, after adding a television fiefdom and selling it off in the intervening years.
Paul Dacre (8) and Nicholas Coleridge (87) remain the supremos at the Mail titles and Conde Nast UK respectively, with Lord Rothermere (33) – aged 34 in 2001 – still Dacre’s boss; while Ian Hislop (40) continues to edit Private Eye and was already into his second decade on Have I Got News for You at the time of the original list. John Witherow (69), then editing the Sunday Times, has switched to its daily sister title.
The two female survivors now occupy significantly different posts, although both are still with the same organisations despite bruising experiences. Helen Boaden (96), the controller of Radio 4 in 2001, now oversees all of BBC radio as well as moonlighting in the grand-sounding role of director, England. Rebekah Brooks was Rebekah Wade (54) and editing the News of the World in 2001; 14 years on, she’s in her second stint as boss of Murdoch’s British newspapers, with the News of the World dead
“Our three criteria were: cultural influence, economic clout and political power,” wrote the then media editor, Janine Gibson, introducing the inaugural line-up – a list that appeared five weeks after the landslide re-election of Tony Blair’s Labour government and two years ahead of the 2003 Communications Act which lifted the ban on foreign ownership of UK television licences and lowered the bar for so called “cross-media ownership”.
Despite the same focus on cultural influence as well as economic and political clout, the 2001 list is much shorter on talent (just Chris Tarrant and David Jason, plus one or two executives, such as Popstars’ Nigel Lythgoe, who also appeared onscreen) than the 2015 version, which finds room for singers, presenters and showrunners Armando Iannucci, Steven Moffat and Shonda Rhimes.
As a ranking of the suits who controlled the British media, the first MediaGuardian 100 only claimed to be a snapshot of those on top in summer 2001; it was not, like some similar lists, an attempt to predict who would have staying power and rise higher or extend their influence.
And with hindsight that looks wise, as plenty of the 2001 elite are in other lines of business – Bill Gates (its No 2), for instance, is now a philanthropist, Greg Dyke (3) runs the FA and Peter Bazalgette (16) the Arts Council – or, like Mark Thompson (13), BBC director of television in 2001. Many have simply retired, and a host of once-mighty, high-ranked figures, such as Didier Bellens, Michael Green, Barclay Knapp and Jean-Marie Messier, are now almost forgotten.
Of these the most compelling instance is Steve Case: the man from AOL was placed spectacularly high at No 4 (for “masterminding the audacious takeover of Time Warner”) because it had yet to become clear that this $164bn marriage of old and new was the worst media deal in history.
Others have suffered worse fates than oblivion: Conrad Black (17), then the Telegraph titles’ owner, has served a US jail term for charges including fraud, although some were overturned on appeal. Max Clifford (49) was jailed for eight years in 2014 for sex offences. Tony O’Reilly (36), whose press portfolio in 2001 included the Independent, was declared bankrupt earlier this month.
Still, if you insist on looking for forecasts of survivability or future stardom, the 2001 choice at No 100 (subsequently the regular wildcard spot) does look inspired. Boris Johnson, then already multitasking as Spectator editor, author and politician, is 14 years later second favourite at 4/1 in the odds for next prime minister. Back then, however, things were not looking rosy: the Tories were plunged in post-election wipeout gloom with some wondering if they would ever return to power, and MediaGuardian worried that as a new MP Johnson “may come under pressure to step down” from his media job.
