Media Moguls Abound in Top 400
Out are the sultans of smokestacks, the magnates of manufacturing. In are the entertainment entrepreneurs.
In addition to those in the Top 20 on this year’s list, above, are CBS Chairman Laurence Tisch at $1.3 billion and Ted Turner at $2.2 billion. Aaron Spelling, Bill Cosby and Disney’s Michael Eisner made the grade as well.
About half a dozen of the media communications group share one thing in common: the drive to control Paramount Communications Inc. Since last month, when Sumner Redstone’s Viacom Inc. bid $7 billion for Paramount, other more lucrative offers have followed--by rival members of thcopfe Forbes 400 club.
Other suitors to emerge include QVC’s Barry Diller, TCI-Liberty Media’s John Malone and Comcast Corp.’s Ralph Roberts. Turner could also enter the fray.
Forbes attributes much of the rise of entertainment communications to a “postindustrial society.” The magazine defines the phenomenon in simple terms: less time laboring in the fields, more time for leisure.
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