Canada's Policy on Israel is Shameful. by Izzy Asper.
National Post. June 19, 2001
[Israel Asper owns half of the National Post, and he controls Can/World, one of Canada's biggest media dynasties, with holdings throughout the world]
"Israel, after 53 years of statehood, remains the only isolated island of democracy, human rights and rule of law -- a lonely outpost of Western civilization and its values in a sea of terrorism, corruption, dictatorship and human enslavement. Countries like Canada should therefore be in the vanguard of its support, for mutual economic, military and ethical reasons."

Canadian Media Giants Announce Landmark Convergence Deal,
Canada Newswire, July 2000
"[Israel Asper's] CanWest Global Communications Corp. today announced the largest transaction in the history of the Canadian media industry. CanWest, owners of Canada's most popular national television network, Global Television, has agreed to acquire 100% of the principal metropolitan operations of the successful Hollinger newspaper chain in Canada, together with all of its Canadian Internet properties, its magazine group, most of the community publishing operations and a 50% interest in the National Post. The merged company will have complete and unparalleled national and local coverage in both electronic and print media, plus the canada.com network, a leading group of national and local Internet sites ... With the addition of the Hollinger properties and the 50% stake in the National Post, CanWest will become Canada's most comprehensive multiple platform media company, with a strong national and local profile in news, publishing, conventional and specialty television and the Internet, as well as in the production and international distribution of television entertainment programming and feature films. - CanWest will have the largest electronic and print information and news gathering capacity in Canada, with more journalists, editors and news gathering personnel than any other media operation in the country." [Note here Asper's directly censorial policies about reporting on Israel.]

TV Venture By Cosmetics Heir Raises Questions.
New York Times, April 5, 1997 [posted at Ukraine net]
"Ronald Lauder and Vadim Rabinovich could scarcely be more different. An urbane former U.S. ambassador to Austria, Lauder [once the president of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations] is heir to a cosmetics fortune, chairman of the board of the Museum of Modern Art and a former candidate for mayor of New York. Rabinovich, a self-made Ukrainian millionaire, spent nine years in a Soviet prison for theft and has been linked to a suspected Russian criminal figure. But the two men are joined as partners in a television venture in Ukraine that has raised eyebrows among Western diplomats and businessmen in Washington and Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, both because of Rabinovich's background and because of the apparently favored treatment the venture received from the Ukrainian government ... U.S. government officials acknowledged that embassy officials had told Lauder and other company officials about Rabinovich's conviction and his links to Grigory Loutchansky, a Russian whose company, Nordex, is suspected of having ties to criminal organizations ... Rabinovich was jailed from 1982 to 1990 for theft from the state. He said in an interview that he had been chief of a construction brigade and had sold goods to private customers. He said he had committed no real crime and had been persecuted for being Jewish."

Lauder Media Company Faces US Inquiry. New York Times, June 12, 2000
"A company owned by Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetic heir and former New York city mayoral candidate, is under investigation over allegations that it paid at least $1 million in bribes to Ukrainian officials for a valuable television license, according to lawyers and U. S. Justice documents." [Lauder was at the time the chairman of the Presidents' Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations.]

U.S. Mogul Czech-Mated. Variety, January 22, 2001
"When an American billionaire picks a $500 million fight with a small European country, whom would you put your money on? Ronald Lauder, scion of the Estee Lauder empire and chairman of Central European Media Enterprises, will launch a personal lawsuit March 5 in London against the Czech Republic for half a billion dollars in damages ... He is alleging the Czech government colluded with his former partner, Vladimir Zelezny [also Jewish, and "one of the wealthiest men in the Czech Republic"], in the hijacking of TV Nova, the hugely successful private web launched by CME back in 1994 ... From the Czech government's point of view, it's a test of their power to shape their own media destiny in the face of multinational corporate interests ... It's widely believed that Zelezny also covertly manages Prima TV, Nova's main commercial rival."

Hasidic Brahmin Revives a Family Business,
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], June 22, 2001
"[Ira Korff] is a direct descendant of the Baal Shem Tov, the 18th century founder of the Hasidic movement ... About 10 years ago Korff decided to continue the family tradition by succeeding his deceased grandfather as 'Grand Rabbi' ... Korff says that the worst purveyor of violence and profanity on TV is Music Television (MTV), which is owned by Viacom. But, he adds, 'I have no interest in attacking Viacom, and MTV is an ethically run business.' After all, much of his own wealth was made while serving as president and later consultant to National Amusements Inc., a large movie-theatre chain which holds the majority of shares in Viacom, the world's second-largest media company (to AOL Time Warner Inc.) Furthermore, his first wife, Shari Redstone, is the daughter of [Jewish mogul] Sumner Redstone, chairman and CEO of Viacom, and Korff's three children from that marriage will like profit from their grandfather's fortune. Forbes recently estimated Redstone's personal wealth at $14 billion."

The Short, Winding Road of Brian Epstein. [Jewish] Forward, January 12, 2001
"The timing seems right for 'The Brian Epstein Story,' a documentary playing at the Jewish Film Festival (January 18 and January 21) about the gay, Jewish record-department manager — of the Liverpool store owned by his parents — who met the Beatles and in little more than a year turned them into the most successful musical act in the world. The life of the Beatles' first manager has been familiar to Beatles fans for decades, though always as one of the sideshows to the record-shattering main attraction. With the focus reversed, some arresting tidbits emerge, such as when Paul McCartney explains his father's immediate approval of Epstein. 'He thought Jewish people were very good with money,' Mr. McCartney says. 'That was the common wisdom. He thought Brian would be very good for us.... And he was right.... If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was Brian.'"

Comcast Defends Bid for AT&T Broadband. Toronto Star, July 9, 2001
"Comcast Corp. executives defended their $41 billion US bid for top cable TV operator AT&T Broadband on Monday as investors pushed Comcast shares down seven per cent. Comcast president Brian Roberts [who is Jewish, and whose family controls Comcast] urged AT&T shareholders to support the merger because he said it carries less risk than a plan to spin off AT&T Broadband as a separate company -- and would be a tax-free deal ... The hostile offer by Philadelphia-based Comcast, the third largest U.S. cable TV provider, would create a cable TV and high-speed Internet access giant dwarfing all others. If the deal goes through, Comcast would have 22 million cable TV subscribers -- about a third of all U.S. cable users -- and leading positions in eight of the top 10 U.S. markets."

Ivy Day May 18: Comcast's Mr. Roberts,
Almanac (University of Pennsylvania), April 23, 1996
"Penn seniors have chosen as this years's Ivy Day speaker Brian L. Roberts, a Penn alumnus who is president of hte Comcast Corporation -- the Philadelphia-based telecommunications company that within the past month bought the Philadelphia '76ers, the Flyers, and the Sprectrum ... He joined Comcast Corporations' Board of Directors in 1987 and became president in 1990. He is a board member of three cable television networks -- Turner Broadcasting System, QVC, Inc., and Viewer's Choice -- and Chairman of the National Cable Television Association ... Roberts won silver medals [in squash] at the 1981 and 1985 Maccabiah Games in Israel." [Early Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion once noted that "Maccabi is without a doubt one of the most important offshoots of the Zionist movement." Maccabi "goals and objectives" include "1. To re-inforce Jewish Zionist Education, both for the youth and adults to enable the Jews to receive and explore their roots. 2. To fight Assimilation 3. To get the Jewish youth of the Diaspora more acquainted with the Jewish heritage and tradition. 4. To foster the relationship between the Jewish communities inter-globally and with Israel."]

Roberts Gain Power with Cable Merger, Yahoo! (from Associated Press,
December 20, 2001
"Roberts Gain Family Power With Merger of Comcast-AT&T Cable Companies ... Nearly 40 years later, the Roberts family, with Brian steering Comcast Corp. is set to become a giant of the industry with a planned $45 billion takeover of AT&T's cable division, creating a company with 22.3 million cable subscribers in 41 states. The company will have more than 30 percent of the cable market. 'They are creating a giant and setting themselves up for 50 years,' analyst David Goldsmith said Thursday ... The Roberts will only have a 1 percent equity stake in the combined company. But they will control one-third of the voting stock, far more than any other single block of voting shareholders."

A Feel for a Good Story. Mothers Who Think/Salon.com, March 17, 1998
"In 1991, reporter Mark Hertsgaard, author of 'On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency,' wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine in which he documented [Jewish 60 Minutes producer Don] Hewitt's own serious problems with impulse control. Women who worked in the "60 Minutes" offices described to Hertsgaard a sexually charged environment that had more in common with a drunken frat party than a professional newsroom. Correspondent Mike Wallace [also Jewish] was singled out for bottom slapping, lewd comments and unsnapping co-workers' bras. While today no one would hesitate to call such behavior sexual harassment, Wallace's cheerful willingness to do it in public -- even in front of a stranger -- made him seem like a good (albeit unpleasant) old boy. But the charges against Hewitt make [President Bill] Clinton's alleged behavior look like clumsy courtship. One woman described to Hertsgaard how Hewitt slammed her against a wall, pinned her there and forced his tongue down her throat."

Putin's Choice. The Nation, July 24-31, 2000
"In June [Russian President] Putin briefly jailed [Russian Jewish mogul] Vladimir Gusinsky, a leading media tycoon ... The ultimate oligarch, Boris Berezovsky [also a major Russian Jewish media mogul], continues to exercise considerable influence. The US media treated Gusinsky's arrest as a crackdown on Russia's independent media, particularly the mogul's television network, NTV. But most Moscow journalists will tell you that a truly free press was largely lost when the tycoons carved up the national broadcasting and newspaper properties several years ago and that Gusinsky's arrest was primarily Putin's first move against the financial oligarchy. Certainly, that's how the oligarchs themselves saw it ... As for the great majority of Russians who live below or near the poverty line thanks to the nineties 'reforms'--and who voted for Putin--the new President has shown little concern ... If Putin has given ordinary citizens any satisfaction, it was with Gusinsky's arrest. Indeed, I have yet to meet anyone in Moscow who doesn't believe that most Russians would welcome the arrest of all the oligarchs, particularly the majority who are Jewish. (Nearly a decade of immiseration has strengthened anti-Semitism, always a factor here.)"

An Offer Forbes Can't Refuse? Warsaw Voice [Poland], March 2, 1997
"In its Dec. 30, 1996 issue, Forbes published an extensive article called 'Godfather of the Kremlin?,' in which it charged [Boris] Berezovsky with responsibility for the 1995 killing of popular television journalist Vladimir Listev. The magazine also accused Berezovsky of having numerous mafia connections and embezzling $50 million collected by his company from thousands of Russians who purchased AVVA shares-allegedly to start producing a new passenger car ... Berezovsky took control of Russian television's main channel; he also holds a 30-percent share in the Russian-American TV6 channel, the popular weekly magazine Ogonyok and the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta (read in influential circles). He has set up his own bank, gains profits from Aeroflot, and last year took over most of the shares of Sibneft, a leading oil company. Berezovsky played a key role in last year's presidential elections. He financed Yeltsin's election campaign, as well as General Aleksandr Lebed's ... On Oct. 29, 1996 Yeltsin signed a decree appointing Berezovsky deputy secretary of the Security Council. Soon after, it turned out that the president had broken the law, which does not permit people with dual citizenship to hold top state positions. Berezovsky had held Russian and Israeli citizenship. Following the scandal which broke when this was disclosed, Berezovsky quickly renounced his Israeli citizenship ... The opposition in the Duma has demanded that Yeltsin remove Berezovsky, who is also accused by the Russian media of having mafia connections."

The Second Edition of the Sensational book about Boris Berezovsky Is Being Prepared in the U.S., Pravda [Russia]
"The sensational book by US journalist and historian Paul Khlebnikov about [Jewish Russian mogul] Boris Berezovsky, which is coming out in Russia in the Russian language, will see its second edition in August in the USA. The new edition will contain new materials about the Russian businessman, whom Khlebnikov called in his book 'the godfather of gangster capitalism' in Russia ... Explaining the reasons for publishing the book in the USA and preparing its second edition there, Harcourt Publishing House stresses that Boris Berezovsky's personality is unique in many respects. Just call any crisis or scandal and there will be a chance of Berezovsky being in the very midst of it, whether elections machinations, organized crime, misappropriation of IMF loans, money-laundering, assassination attempts, international contraband of arms and kidnapping during the war in Chechnya, notes the publishers' prospectus of the book."

CBS-Viacom Merger Redefines Jewish Role in Media.
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California. 9-17-99
"There was a telling moment, midway through last week's press conference announcing the CBS-Viacom megamerger, when one of the unmentionables of American entertainment peeked through the veils for an instant. It came when a reporter asked CBS president Mel Karmazin why he wanted this merger. His reply: 'This is the deal I've wanted to make, I think, from the time I was bar-mitzvahed.' The reporters laughed nervously. Nobody commented afterward. Nobody would have brought it up if Karmazin hadn't. It's one of those inside jokes you don't usually tell in public. Americans consider it downright rude to talk publicly about Jewish ownership in the media. Marlon Brando mentioned it two years ago on 'Larry King Live' and nearly got lynched. Three years earlier, journalist William Cash caused an international uproar with a scathing 1994 article about Jewish influence in Hollywood in the Spectator, a British newsweekly. It's just not something you discuss in conventional society ... Now, after all the deals and buyouts, four of the five mega-media companies are run by Jews. We're back where we started, bigger than ever. Does it matter? It does if you're an anti-Semitic conspiracy nut. You'd be wrong."

The Newhouse Way. Columbia Journalism Review. January/February 2001
"Ever since [Jewish media mogul] Samuel I. Newhouse Sr. bought the Staten Island Advance in 1922, the Newhouse family has given its editors great freedom as it went about building one of the country's largest and most prosperous privately held media empires. Today that empire, Advance Publications, is home to twenty-three daily newspapers of varying size, location, and quality; Condé Nast magazines, including Vanity Fair and The New Yorker; Fairchild Publications; Parade magazine; a chain of suburban weeklies; another of business tabs; a cable television partnership with Time Warner; and a growing online operation. Last year, Advertising Age ranked Advance the tenth largest U.S. media company, with estimated 1998 revenue of nearly $4 billion, more than half coming from its newspapers. One reason Newhouse newspapers can give editors such freedom and still make money is because most are dominant in their market. In Cleveland, for instance, Advance endured a 1985 grand jury investigation into allegations that it conspired to kill the Cleveland Press, which closed in 1982, giving The Plain Dealer what amounts to a metropolitan daily newspaper monopoly. Then, in 1998, Advance tightened its grip on northern Ohio with the purchase of Sun Newspapers, a chain of twenty-three zoned weeklies in suburban Cleveland. The Newhouses are clannish and tight-lipped about the family business. Family members are scattered throughout Advance, and each paper is assigned to a Newhouse overseer who visits monthly. Samuel I. Sr., who died in 1979, turned the operation over to his sons -- Samuel I. Jr., or Si, who handles the magazines, and Donald, who takes care of the newspapers. They are now gradually bringing in the next generation."

The Last Tycoon. Los Angeles Magazine [here at findarticles.com], April 2000
"Twenty years ago, [Arnon] Milchan, an unknown Israeli tycoon, pitched his hat into the Hollywood ring. Today he runs his own mini studio within a studio on Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox lot. It is the reward for being one of the town's most prolific producers of successful quality movies, more than 60 in all, including Fight Club, L.A. Confidential, Entrapment, Pretty Woman, JFK, The King of Comedy, Brazil, Natural Born Killers, Heat, The Mambo Kings and The War of the Roses ... And notwithstanding Milchan's denials, dismissals and wafflings, arms dealing has surely contributed to his fortune. (He claims that his parent company, Regency Enterprises, is valued at more than $1 billion.) As the Los Angeles Times coyly put it, "Milchan has also worked in arms consulting." Throughout the 1970s, '80s and even up until the Gulf War in 1991, Milchan was Israel's foremost weapons procurer, brokering deals for such prized superweapons as the Hawk missile and the famous Scud-foil of the Gulf War, the Patriot--"everything from nuclear triggers to rocket fuel to guidance systems," according to NBC News."

Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA And the Mob.
moldea.com [Investigative journalist Dan Moldea is the author of a number of books: this excerpt from Dark Victory was published by Viking in 1986]
"President Ronald Reagan's professional life--his acting career, his personal financial fortune, and his rise in politics--has been interwoven with and propelled by a powerful, Hollywood-based entertainment conglomerate named MCA. For nearly fifty years, Reagan has benefited both personally and financially from his association with this sixty-two-year-old company--formerly known as the Music Corporation of America--as well as from his close association with the firm's top executives: Jules Stein, Lew Wasserman, and Taft Schreiber [All these men are Jewish]. Everyone involved has greatly profited from this relationship. MCA helped to make its client, actor Ronald Reagan, a multimillionaire; and the favors that were returned by Reagan, the former president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the former governor of California, have helped to transform MCA into a billion-dollar empire and the most powerful force in the entertainment world today ... Today, MCA is still 'the Octopus,' even though it is out of the talent agency business and now the owner of the largest motion picture and television production companies in the United States, Universal Pictures and Universal-Television ... The brains behind MCA was Jules Stein, a Chicago ophthalmologist who discovered that he could make more money booking bands ... The rise of MCA and its move to Hollywood paralleled the rise of the Chicago Mafia and its infiltration of the motion picture industry. Chicago's new liaison in the motion picture industry became attorney Sidney Korshak, [also Jewish] ... Charles Gioe, a top Chicago Mafia figure, had told [Mafia agent Willie] Bioff that Korshak was 'our man . . . any message he may deliver to you is a message from us.' A close friend of Stein's and Wasserman's, Korshak quickly became one of the most powerful influences in the entertainment industry and in California politics. One of his key political connections was another former Chicagoan, Paul Ziffren [also Jewish], who at one point was California's delegate to the National Democratic Committee."

Lew Wasserman and MCA: A Star-Spangled Octopus.
New York Observer, December 7, 1998
"Mr. Wasserman was the protégé and partner of Jules Stein, who founded the original M.C.A., a talent booking agency which by the 1930’s had a control of the market that first staggered and then swiftly wiped out its rivals. Once M.C.A. had mastered the balance of kid-glove client control with iron-fist contract negotiation, its expansion into movies was inevitable. During the following decades, the corporation in its various incarnations dominated almost every aspect of the entertainment business: live music, radio, television, cinema and talent management ... M.C.A. expanded inexorably; the Saturday Evening Post, with a delightful lack of poetry, called it the 'Star-Spangled Octopus' ... The only script Mr. Wasserman ever asked to read was The Sting, the 1973 smash hit about small-time Chicago gangsters. Perhaps [Producer David] Brown would have been less surprised had he known of M.C.A.’s long record of association with the mob, from labor negotiations to alleged murder threats. Apparently, the company even lent an office to [Jewish mobster] Meyer Lansky for a secret meeting."

Lizzie Grubman. Yahoo! News [from the Washington Post], July 25, 2001
"Let us feel for Lizzie Grubman. Miss Grubman is the daughter of Allen Grubman, a very rich music biz attorney. She is 30, a college dropout, and an entertainment industry publicist ... According to press reports, club bouncer Scott Conlon asked her to move the car from a fire lane. Miss Grubman allegedly riposted: '(Expletive) you, white trash." She then allegedly drove the SUV fast, about 35 feet in reverse, striking and injuring 16 people, including Conlon ... What, Miss Grubman might say, about Jeff Zucker? Mr. Zucker is the very role model for us. He is the president of NBC Entertainment. As such, he is responsible for 'Fear Factor,' NBC's 'reality show' in which people who are desperate enough for money are induced to risk bodily harm and endure national humiliation ... Mr. Zucker mocks those who find something wrong in this. 'We're having fun, we're having a great summer,' he told reporters this week. 'Get a life.'"

Godfather of Latin Rap. Los Angeles Business Journal [at findarticles.com], February 19, 2001
"In a former IRS office building in the Rampart district of Los Angeles, an eight-month-old record label is germinating what it claims will be the next phenomenon to sweep the nation's pop culture scene. It's Latino rap, and Hit A Lick Records is positioned to be its leading force. Lending credence to that bold claim is that the founders of Hit A Lick have enticed record industry legend Jerry Heller out of retirement to lead their effort ... If Heller is convinced that Latin rap will emerge as the next big thing, it probably will be, said other music industry veterans ... Indeed, Heller is widely acknowledged as one of the key forces behind gangsta rap's crossover into the music mainstream. He co-founded Ruthless Records with rap star Eazy-E, was the manager and marketing force behind the group NWA [Niggas With Attitude] (which to date has sold in excess of 100 million records) and introduced such rap legends as Dr. Dre and Ice Cube to mainstream American audiences ... While Heller has the second-tier title of chief operating officer [of Hit a Lick], he acknowledges that the other partners 'generally run everything by me because of my experience and expertise.'"

Little Lansky and the Big Check. Rolling Stone, June 6, 2001
"[Israeli-born Lyor] Cohen has risen and fallen with the company, from hits by LL Cool J and Public Enemy to the label's short, debt-ridden stint as part of Sony Music. In these years, he has grown into perhaps the most powerful white executive in an African-American business. The history of rock & roll is, of course, riddled with pioneering white record men who built careers recording and, sometimes, exploiting black artists: Morris Levy, that burly, cigar-smoking product of the Brill Building, allegedly stealing writing credits from Frankie Lyman; Herman Lubinsky, the founder of Savoy Records in Newark, New Jersey, throwing around nickels as if they were manhole covers ... 'Lyor is probably the coolest white dude in the game,' says Irv Gotti, a black record producer who works with Jay-Z and DMX. 'He's a white Jewish guy, but I think everybody respects him like he's black. He's knows how to carry it, too. He knows how to get gangster, how to fall back, when to shut the fuck up, when to say something. That's why other white executives are scared of him. He knows how to deal with the hoods, the criminal element.'"

One Live Jew. New Times, August 10, 2000
"The owner [Joe Weinberger] of the hip-hop label Lil' Joe Records pulls up to his northwest Miami-Dade offices most mornings in a true player's ride, an aquamarine Jaguar S-2000. He wears the right accessories for his role. A diamond-crusted Rolex jangles from his right wrist. Fat gold rings glisten on both hands. He even carries a 9 mm automatic pistol tucked into a pants pocket. If this were the beginning of a movie, a deep bass track would announce his arrival."

Sexy, Sophisticated, or Smutty? Alberta Report [Canada], April 28, 1997
"A recent decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council suggests that if Ellen [the American lesbian-oriented TV series] were produced here, the only controversy would be whether she would be shown naked in bed with her lesbian lover ... Nudity is not yet common on Canadian sitcoms, but the diaphanously-clad models featured on such haute couture 'news' programs as CBC Newsworld's Fashion File and the syndicated Fashion Television often resemble Salome stripped to her last veil ... Two weeks ago the industry-funded CBSC (which had earlier dismissed two previous claims against Fashion Television) dismissed this complaint as well. The CBSC cited a response from series producer CITY-TV--owned by [Jewish mogul] Moses Znaimer, who also co-owns Alberta's ACCESS-TV--'We do not equate nudity with pornography. Fashion and photography to our mind are art' ... The unnamed complainant had argued in a January 1995 letter, 'These are prime time family viewing hours and it is highly inappropriate for such sexually explicit material to be shown on television.' Ron Cohen, CBSC national chairman, rejects this argument as irrelevant, contending that the specialized nature of the program appeals to adults only ... Jay Levine, Fashion Television's producer, adds that nudity is to be expected from a show covering an industry where 'being sexy is to be provocative.' He adds, 'We're doing something that obviously a lot of people don't have a problem with ... a few years ago it would have been inconceivable that producer-writer Ken Finkleman could utter 'the f-word' on his hit CBC sitcom The Newsroom.'"

U of T: Moses Mags Useful to Scholars. Toronto Sun, July 7, 1998
"The University of Toronto says the media are unfairly 'trivializing/ its Moses Znaimer collection because it includes soft-porn magazines and T-shirts .... The collection became controversial because it includes issues of Penthouse, Oui, Elite and Hustler magazines as well as MuchMusic [Znaimer's company] T-shirts. But Gayle Garlock, the university's director of development and public affairs, said the soft-porn magazines are an important part of the Znaimer story. He said the magazines were used to illustrate community standards when CITY-TV faced obscenity charges in its early days. 'Moses Znaimer is a major figure in Canadian broadcasting and we're delighted to have a collection that we think will be used by scholars for years to come,' Garlock added."

Concentrated Rock. Worcester Phoenix, March 20-27, 1998
"As the atomic bomb changed the world, so the explosive emergence of a new concert-business conglomerate threatens to transform the $1.3 billion live-music industry. A half-billion-dollar spending spree has made SFX Entertainment a superpower -- the first nationwide concert promoter. And when the mushroom cloud of its birth clears and the giant begins flexing its muscle, the shock waves may affect everyone from booking agents to artists to competing promoters and -- most important -- you. The man behind SFX Entertainment is power broker Robert Sillerman [who is Jewish], an entertainment-biz wizard who amassed a fortune's worth of radio stations, sold them off last year, and then began systematically buying a half-dozen of the country's best-run, most powerful independent concert-promotion companies. When those acquisitions were completed this month, SFX was suddenly in control of a national web of 42 major concert venues and more than 100 clubs and small theaters. Now SFX indisputably dominates the concert market ... During 20 years of acquisitions, Sillerman had amassed 71 [radio] stations, which he sold in August 1997 to the Dallas-based investment company Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. The price tag: $1.1 billion. With his coffers filled, Sillerman went on a carefully orchestrated buying spree. By the time the year was up, he'd spent $449 million on seven companies."

Death of a Tycoon. Index Online. April 1, 1998
"In what amounts to a public execution, Hungary's leading print media tycoon, Janos Fenyo (44) [who was Jewish], was shot dead in his car on 11 February, while caught at traffic lights in Budapest's evening rush hour ... Although the media have treated the murder as a gangland vendetta, in private journalists admit that the assassination was almost certainly commissioned within Hungary, either by the criminal underground or by someone in authority. At the time of his death Fenyo is reported to have been facing about 30 court cases. He had connections in all walks of life, and his friends also included a number of prominent liberals ... His media empire, VICO Rt. ... is currently the biggest print media-owner in Hungary, controlling the popular, middle-of-the-road daily Nepszava, along with three colour weeklies. It is also former owner of the television channel TV 4, and has additional interests in real estate."

Brazilian Jewry: A Concise History. JewishGen: The Home of Jewish Geneology.
"There is a TV personality in Brazil known as Silvio Santos. His real family name is Abravanel, and his family came from Salonika in Greece. Abravanel is an important Jewish Sephardic family that came from the Iberic peninsula and Italy in the 15th century. Santos is widely known because he conducted a four-hour long TV variety show on Sunday nights. It offered music and half-clad dancing women. Its objective was to sell merchandise. It did, and Mr. Abravanel now owns SBT, his own TV network encompassing 98 stations throughout the country. In addition, the Silvio Santos Group is now a conglomerate that operates a number of businesses, including a travel agency. When I told a non-Jewish Brazilian friend that I was going to mention Silvio Santos in my presentation, he objected. My reply was that Santos proves Jews aren't always purveyors of good taste or culture." [SBT is the second largest -- albeit distant second -- TV company in Brazil]

Jayme Sirotsky. Chairman of the Board of RBS. The Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida.
"Sirotsky has been a partner in Rede Brasil Sul (RBS) since 1962. He has held top management positions within the group, and in1991 was nominated Chairman of the Board. RBS is a communications giant with 18 broadcast stations, 19 radio stations, 5 daily newspapers (Zero Hora, Diário Gaúcho, Pioneiro, Diário Catarinense and Jornal de Santa Catarina), cable television systems and internet operations. RBS has 4,600 employees. In addition to his many accomplishments within RBS, Sirotsky is the former president of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and President of the Advisory Board; former president of the Brazilian Newspaper Association (ANJ) and member of the advisory council and board."

Mr. USA. Los Angeles, March 1998
"No question about it: [Barry] Diller had been a master of the Hollywood universe. At just 26, he participated in the birth of that hallowed art form, the movie-of-the-week, at ABC; by his thirties, he was running Paramount Pictures, overseeing decade-defining hits like Saturday Night Fever and Beverly Hills Cop; and in 1986, he confounded skeptics by creating a fourth network, the Fox Broadcasting Co., with such nose-thumbing shows as Married ... with Children and The Simpsons. Challenging his subordinates every bit as much as questioning the status quo, Diller earned a reputation as a hard-driving taskmaster: His compact but powerful physical presence and bullet head suggested a hair-trigger bomb--he could explode into a tirade one minute, break into a gap-toothed smile the next. One bit of Hollywood lore had him hurling a videocassette at Fox exec Stephen Chao, who commemorated the moment by leaving the resulting hole in the wall and surrounding it with a frame."

The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood.
Gay Book World, [Book Review of The Operator. Undated]
"Complex, contentious, and blessed with the perfect-pitch ability to find the next big talent, David Geffen has shaped American popular culture for the last three decades. His dazzling career has included the roles of power agent, record-industry mogul, Broadway producer, and billionaire Hollywood studio founder. From the beginning, though, Geffen's many accomplishments have been shadowed by the ruthless single-mindedness with which he has pursued fame, power, and money ... The extent of Geffen's accomplishments is extraordinary. As a manager in the 1960s, he made the deal for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to appear at Woodstock. He discovered 1970s superstars Jackson Browne and the Eagles and masterminded Bob Dylan's famed 1974 tour; Joni Mitchell, Geffen's roommate for a time, memorialized him in her song 'Free Man in Paris.' He produced Risky Business, the movie that made Tom Cruise a star, and was the moneyman behind Cats, the longest-running musical in Broadway history ... One of the most brilliant dealmakers ever to work in Hollywood, he became a billionaire shortly after selling Geffen Records in 1990, and he made movie history when he founded, with friends Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks SKG, the first new Hollywood studio in fifty-five years. And Geffen's influence has extended far beyond show business and into the worlds of Wall Street, art, real estate, and politics.Geffen's personal journey is as compelling as his business machinations. Although he knew from an early age that he was gay, he hid his true sexual urges and for years attempted to lead a heterosexual life ... Geffen learned from his earliest days in the William Morris mailroom that he could cheat and lie his way to the top, and he has ever after lived unconstrained by traditional notions of right and wrong."

Velvet Mafia, by Taki Le Maitre. [Review of The Operator, by Tom King]
New York Press, Vol. 13, Issue 10, 2001
"I’m not at all surprised to read that Hollywood is dominated by a Velvet Mafia of rich homosexuals who demand sexual favors in return for work in the movies. In fact I would have been surprised if it were the other way round. Those old Mittel-Europa Jews who ran Tinseltown in its heyday established the casting-couch practice long ago; but, as they say, at least they did it with style and with the opposite sex. The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood is the title of an upcoming book by Tom King, a respected Wall Street Journal reporter who it seems has hit pay dirt–and it’s dirt, all right–with his exposé of the unspeakable [David] Geffen. Actually it’s poetic justice. Geffen invited King to write a book about his amazing rise to the top, and allegedly named dozens of former boyfriends, many of them now famous stars. Indiscretion aside, Geffen is a lowlife sans pareil ... Geffen, of course, denies there is such a thing as a homosexual cabal, and, typically, charges anti-Semitism. According to King’s book, friends like Barry Diller, Sandy Gallin and Calvin Klein [all Jewish], among many others, keep a lower profile but apparently indulge in the sexual bacchanals that go with the territory. Alleged weekend-long orgies fueled by drugs at which Geffen and his powerful buddies run a 'meat market' selecting young men for sex are apparently described in detail in King’s opus. Here is one of Bill Clinton’s close supporters, one who had a free run of the Lincoln bedroom, and was, I believe, once even called an adviser to the Draft Dodger, pushing a gay agenda of promoting stars and directors who make movies and records sympathetic to the gay lifestyle. Geffen is a natural for the Clinton White House. Sleaze is the operative word."

Whatever Would Uncle Walt [Disney] Say? Guardian [London], April 18, 1999
"Walt Disney Corporation chairman Michael Eisner ... [has] a crisis over Spike Lee's Summer of Sam - which uses the real-life serial killings of David Berkowitz [who was of Jewish heritage], aka the Son of Sam, as a backdrop to a fictional story. But also Kevin 'Clerks' Smith's controversy-plagued [Catholic] religious satire, Dogma, was unloaded by Disney-owned Miramax (co-chairmen Harvey and Bob Weinstein) to the Weinsteins as individuals - they paid $10 million for the film. Buying it outside of their deal with Disney means that they don't have to conform to Disney strictures. Or as the noble Weinsteins put it, they spare Disney any embarrassment ... 'The ratings board said that this work [Summer of Sam] would not be released with an R rating,' said Walt Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth ... In truth, Miramax has made Disney an even bigger target than it already was. The problems with hardline Catholics started with a small British film, the Jimmy McGovern-scripted Priest, in which Linus Roache plays a gay priest. Although the film made a negligible impact among US audiences, Miramax - and by implication Disney - were branded as 'Catholic bashers'."

Owning Media as a Story in Its Own Write.
Jerusalem Post, October 7, 1999 [Book Review]
"Scandal is right at the center of the Annenberg story and is indeed a large part of the legacy that Moses Annenberg left his son Walter ... Moe Annenberg soon brushed up against the illegal gambling industry as well, eventually planting the seeds of his fortune in the rich manure of horse racing news. While virtually still a youth, Moe all but monopolized the tipsheets and wire services that were indispensable throughout the country to legal handicappers and backroom bookies alike ... Nothing short of a financial wizard - Annenberg sold all of his stock four days before the crash of 1929 - he eventually would control some 80 companies. The jewel in the crown was The Philadelphia Inquirer. Annenberg ultimately pleaded guilty to one charge of income tax evasion and had the book thrown at him - a huge fine and a three-year prison sentence. The authorities even cast doubt on his citizenship and considered trying to have him deported - this in the midst of World War II ... . [Son Walter] continued to build up The Inquirer, greatly increased the family fortunes with the launch of Seventeen, and after TV Guide became by far the best selling magazine in America, Walter and each of his seven sisters were billionaires."

Selling Off Seagram. Forward, June 23, 2000
"The passing of The Seagram Co. out of the hands of the Bronfman family this week -- the beverage and entertainment conglomerate is being sold for about $34 billion to a French firm, Vivendi -- is an occasion for reflection and nostalgia for many in the Jewish world. Acquired in 1928 by Samuel Bronfman, who was born at sea to Jews fleeing tsarist Russia for Canada, Seagram once functioned as a bootlegging operation; it is said to have produced half the liquor drunk in America during Prohibition. Today, the company, which later broadened into stakes in DuPont and Tropicana, represents a distinguished chapter in Jewish economic history, and it manufactures what, to our taste at least, are some mighty superior products. The movie and music acquisitions of Edgar Bronfman Jr., who took the company in an entirely new direction in the 1990s by buying MCA and Polygram, showed the willingness of the younger Bronfman generation to take risks and enter different ventures ... As president for the past 20 years of the World Jewish Congress, Edgar Bronfman has earned himself a place in history as a champion of Soviet Jews and as the leader who jump-started the issue of restitution of Holocaust-era property in Europe."

Edgar's Hollywood Ride. US News, March 29, 1999
"Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. recently wrapped up an informal talk on the $19 billion dynasty he heads with this insight into his success: 'You just have to be real smart,' he told a heavily pinstriped crowd in New York, 'and choose the right father.' By that measure, of course, Bronfman is a genius. A decade ago, his father, Edgar Bronfman Sr., handed him the presidency of the family-controlled liquor empire; five years later, he was named CEO. Bronfman Sr. also stood behind his son in 1995, when he cashed in nearly all of Seagram's lucrative 24.5 percent stake in DuPont to buy 80 percent of MCA/Universal ... Last year, for example, Bronfman spun off Universal's TV assets to Home Shopping Network boss Barry Diller–a move that flabbergasted the content-hungry entertainment industry. A few months later, Bronfman seemed to reverse course: He spent $10.4 billion for Polygram NV, making Universal the world's largest music company."

Air Time. Replaying the Good Old Days of Radio. Forward, March 12, 1999
"The halcyon days of radio broadcasting ... reigned from the mid-1920s until the early 1950s, when television seduced audiences away. Radio was then the dominant medium, the first to offer live entertainment in the comfort of American homes, a shared culture so powerful it became known as 'the empire of the air.' Jews played a pivotal role in creating that empire ... The story begins with the fathers of broadcasting, David Sarnoff and William Paley, competing forces who fueled radio's meteoric rise ... "I realized I couldn't compete with gentiles in a gentile industry if I were merely as good as they were,' Sarnoff once said. 'But if I were, say, twice as good, they couldn't hold me down' ... As an impresario, a corporate head who loved playing talent scout, Paley went where the talent was. And more often that not, the talent was Jewish. Radio was soon stacked with vaudeville headliners like George Burns, Eddie Cantor, Milton Berle, Danny Kaye, Fanny Brice and George Jessel; they had played the same ratty theaters in the boroughs and worked the Borscht Belt together. Other Jewish personalities, like the gossip columnist Walter Winchell, hungry as always for new opportunities, gravitated toward radio, just as they had to movies and just as they would to television in later years." [From radio roots, the three major television networks were built to power by Jewish overseers: Sarnoff at NBC, Paley at CBS, and Leonard Goldenson at ABC].

Just What Does Michael Ovitz Want? New York Times Books, June 8, 1997
"Michael Ovitz, the most powerful agent in Hollywood, who runs Creative Artists Agency, is not only fond of making deals but of making waves as well. This time, though, the latest Ovitz wave has knocked over some rivals who have stood up and vowed to wage combat ... Mr. Ovitz, who has spent the last few years expanding the reach -- and indeed the very definition -- of the agency business. Mr. Ovitz had, after all, helped broker the $7 billion sale of MCA to the Matsushita Electric Company in 1990. He also advised the Sony Corporation on its $3.5 billion purchase of Columbia Pictures Entertainment. Within recent months, Mr. Ovitz has also thrust his agency firmly onto Madison Avenue, creating a new advertising campaign for the Coca-Cola Company and teaming up with Nike to promote sportswear events. These moves impressed Mr. Ovitz's rivals and, while they wouldn't quite acknowledge it, provoked envy. Mr. Ovitz was leapfrogging over his competitors. In fact, he was no longer just an agent but a powerful fixer whose worlds reached far beyond Hollywood ... Jeff Berg, who heads C.A.A.'s major rival, International Creative Management, which represents such superstars as Eddie Murphy, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mel Gibson (while C.A.A.'s roster includes Madonna, Kevin Costner, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Robin Williams and Prince), raised the potential for a conflict of interest. And Jerry Katzman, the chairman of the William Morris Agency, another major agency, has also discussed the conflict-of-issue matter with lawyers."

Wenner's World. Salon.com, April 20, 1999
"[This story is about] the evolution of Jann Wenner: How the ultimate '60s rock groupie built his fantasy into a media empire ... Beyond the door to his office suite stretches the bustling Wenner Media headquarters ('almost the size of a football field,' he says with characteristic immodesty), where the young, the slender and the hip march about in platform shoes performing the mundane tasks of running Jann's empire. This is where the music went. It's strange, but if the entire cultural explosion from the 1960s could be drawn down to just one guy, it would be this compact energy ball right here -- the quintessential baby boomer, our own Peter Pan, a chubby adolescent who would never grow up. Wenner was an entrepreneur long before it was cool. And if, as the venture capitalists like to say, entrepreneurs usually have only one good idea, at least his was a doozy. Wenner was, to put it plainly, the star-fucker who always traded up -- the ultimate name-dropper who finally became a bigger name in the tabs than many of the stars he worshiped. These days he oversees three successful magazines (Rolling Stone, Us and Men's Journal), and if that doesn't provide enough fodder for Wenner-watchers, there are plenty of other angles for the wags to whisper about -- his much younger boyfriend, designer Matt Nye; [and] his many Hollywood buddies, including David Geffen, Barry Diller and Richard Gere ... [In San Francisco] Rolling Stone magazine, which would become the voice of a generation, was born."

Mike Leads the Way to Utopia By Example. The Age [Australia], March 22, 1999
"Michael Bloomberg was entirely ignored by his parents. They kept him in a leaky shed at the bottom of their garden until he was 15. He wasn't shown a mirror until he was 18. Or so you could be forgiven for assuming. When you enter the Bloomberg building in London's Finsbury Square, you see the man's name on everything: the furniture, the disposable coffee cups, the computer mats, the bottled water, the magazines. It's called cross-branding, apparently. His autobiography is, of course, called Bloomberg by Bloomberg (John Wiley, 10.95, about $A28.50). The chrome-and-glass office is open-plan and uplit, with vases of tulips everywhere, rows of television sets suspended from the ceiling and, for a dividing wall, a map of the world in frosted glass. Several large tropical fish tanks are bubbling away - designed, I am told, to create an atmosphere of calming rationality. If you examine the electric-yellow-and-blue fish closely enough, you'll find they, too, have been branded with the name Bloomberg. Probably ... Mike Bloomberg is estimated to be worth $US2 billion to $3billion ($A3 billion to $4.8billion). He has made his fortune providing 'real-time pricing, data and analysis' to the world's financial markets - in direct competition with those long-established news agencies Reuters and Dow Jones (publishers of The Wall Street Journal) ... So ubiquitous has the Bloomberg's e-mail system become that investment bankers and stockbrokers around the world no longer 'message' each other with gossip: they 'Bloomberg.'"

Zuckerman Unbound. Extra!, Jan-Feb 1993
"News consumers also have reason to be wary of [Morton] Zuckerman, who already owns U.S. News & World Report and The Atlantic, taking over another media outlet [the New York Daily News]. As an owner, he has a history of imposing his views on news content, sometimes in defiance of journalistic standards or in pursuit of personal interests. Zuckerman declined to discuss his history as a media owner with Extra! ... Zuckerman has never been shy about promoting a political line in his publications, particularly on the issue of the Middle East. After buying The Atlantic, he issued a ban on articles that, in Zuckerman's estimation, 'challenge Israel's right to exist.' Prior to his move toward neo-conservativism, he had reneged on a commitment to invest $10,000 in The Nation after taking offense at an article about Israel's military and commercial ties to South Africa (New York Times, 2/14/82) ... Under Zuckerman, U.S. News had a contract with a dubious Israeli news service called Depth, drawing criticism from the Columbia Journalism Review (5-6/88). Part of the reason Zuckerman used Depth, one U.S. News staffer told Washington Journalism Review (10/92), was so he 'could get stories that would say the kinds of things he wanted them to say' ... When Zuckerman tried to build on a piece of land near Walden Pond in Massachusetts, provoking major opposition led by singer/songwriter Don Henley, U.S. News was the only one of the three major newsweeklies that didn't do a story on the controversy (Newsweek, 4/30/90; Time, 8/27/90). Richard Lingeman of The Nation (10/28/91) pointed out the irony of the owner of The Atlantic, which first published some of H.D. Thoreau's most memorable essays, attempting to build an office complex on one of Thoreau's favorite spots." [In 2001, Zuckerman was elected to be the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, probably the most influential and prestigious position in the Jewish American community.]

Is This the Most Hated Man in Hollywood? Los Angeles, September 2001
"[Peter] Bart, the editor-in-chief of Variety, the entertainment industry's dominant newspaper, is accustomed to being in charge. Studio heads woo him; strivers kiss his ass. Everyone wants his insight and his wisdom--or prominent placement in Variety's big, glossy pages. In his weekly column, 'The Back Lot,' he alternately strokes and scolds moguls and movie stars, addressing them by their first names. When Bart telephones the powerful, he is put right through ... [He is] among the most despised and feared people in Hollywood ... There are two keys to success in Hollywood: relationships and information. Bart traffics in both. He lunches almost every day with a studio chief, a marketing executive, a top manager or talent agency head, an entertainment lawyer or lobbyist ... But there's another commonality [with 'Harry Cohn, the producer and movie-studio founder whom Bart likes to call 'the mean-spirited czar of Columbia'] that Bart does not wish to talk about. Cohn, like many of Hollywood's founding fathers, was Jewish. When I ask Bart about his own ethnicity, he turns elusive. It's peculiar, to say the least. Of all American industries, Hollywood has historically been a place where Jews have not only achieved acceptance but thrived. But following his parents' dictum, Bart keeps his ancestry a secret ... . 'He was brought up a Quaker, wasn't he?' asks Evans. It's an honest mistake. You can't spend more than an hour with Bart without hearing about his attending Friends Seminary and Swarthmore College--both Quaker institutions. 'I don't want to talk about it,' Bart says of his religious heritage, as one of his knees begins bouncing up and down. 'I resent people's militancy on these issues. Everyone wants to peg everyone else because everyone is predictable. And I'm not.' Over several months he will volunteer that he has never once dated a Jewish girl, never attended a seder, and has been inside a synagogue only once, for the bar mitzvah of then-agent Michael Ovitz's son. ('I wanted to see what one was like.') 'Listen, I got berated by the vice president in charge of business affairs at Paramount,' he says, 'because I did not take off Jewish holidays. And I was affronted. I basically told him to mind his own damned business.'" [As a consequence of revelations in this article, Bart was suspended as the editor of Variety].

Israel Theaters Plan Eastern Europe Expansion. Jerusalem Post, February 27, 2000
"IT International Theaters, a subsidiary of Israel Theaters Ltd., said yesterday it would invest $200 million on expanding its presence in Central Europe. The company, which is the largest motion picture exhibitor in Israel, said it intends to use more than half the sum to develop its activities in Poland. As part of the plan IT will open 100 to 150 new screens in 10-15 new multiplexes throughout Poland over the next three years ... Moshe Greidinger, the company's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement that the move marks another step toward pursuing IT's strategy of aggressive expansion throughout Central Europe ... [IT] is the largest operator of multiplex cinemas in Hungary. It started operating in Hungary in 1997, when it opened its first multiplex theater in a shopping and entertainment center in Budapest, which was built by Israeli entrepreneurs Eli Papouchado and Motti Zisser. IT said that it now operates over one third of its 165 screens outside of Israel. In addition to Hungary and Poland, the company intends now to focus on expanding its activities in the Czech Republic."

Hard-Charging Hank Greenspun Created Lasting Legacy and Ongoing Tradition, Las Vegas Sun [this is a puff-piece by the newspaper Greenspun founded, today edited by his son]
"In 1947 [Las Vegas Sun founder and publisher Hank] Greenspun assisted the Haganah [the early Israeli army] in its efforts to create the nation of Israel as a homeland for the survivors of the Nazi holocaust. It was a move that would have a profound impact on his life. With war on the horizon and Israel short on weapons, Greenspun bought machine guns and airplane parts in Hawaii and accompanied them through Mexico to ship to the Israeli freedom fighters who were fending off the Arab invaders. But Greenspun was caught and pleaded guilty to violating the Neutrality Act in 1950. He was fined $10,000 but received no prison time. Greenspun called it one of his proudest moments because his cause was just and he played a role in the founding of Israel, where to this day he is remembered as a hero. President John Kennedy pardoned Greenspun in 1961 ... In the 1950s, while trying to get his newspaper established, Greenspun ventured into other forms of media and started Las Vegas' first television station, which he later sold to [Howard] Hughes. Later, Greenspun brought cable television to much of the Las Vegas Valley. That company was known as Community Cable TV and later Prime Cable. Today it is Cox Communications -- by far the largest provider of cable television in Southern Nevada. Greenspun also is remembered as one of the valley's top land developers."

The Hollywood Question, Washington Post [book review of Hollywood and Anti-Semitism], September 10, 2001
"[Author] Steven Alan Carr calls [it] 'the Hollywood Question.' It's not really a question so much as a recognition that the American film industry had been founded by men such as Jesse Lasky, Marcus Loew and Carl Laemmle, and was run by men such as Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn and the Warner brothers, and that all of these men were Jewish. Carr's book examines how the perception that the Jews controlled Hollywood shaped not only the movies but also American culture in general ... But the Hollywood Question played on specific prejudices, as Carr points out. One was sexual -- the notorious 'casting couch': 'The Jew was seen as threatening Christian culture through the sexual degradation of aspiring female starlets.' Another was the ancient calumny of the Jew as usurer: The Jewish mogul was charged with an 'implacable disregard for fair business ethics' and with degrading 'the delicate art of the motion picture with his knowledge of credit and discount.' And a third was a presumed cultural inferiority: 'The Jew threatened national identity through his ability to access the American mind and appeal to its lower tastes and values.' Carr shows how Hollywood's sensitivity to these stereotypes shaped the films it made."

Making the Grade, BBC News, Decembe 13, 1998
"Lew Grade was a showbiz mogul of the old school. Larger than life and hardly ever without a cigar between his lips, he dominated the post-war entertainment business in theatre, film production and as one of the pioneers of ITV ... His nephew, Michael, the son of brother Leslie, became Chief Executive of Channel 4 ... Under Lord Grade, ATV came to dominate television from the 1950s into the 1970s."

Hollywood's Disdain for Democracy, by John W. Cones,
FIRM (Film Industry Reform Movement)
"I merely conducted an organized study that allowed me to determine that some 60 to 80 percent of these individuals who had greenlight authority over Hollywood films actually shared a common background. And, based on the literature of the industry and using specific descriptions already offered by many other Hollywood observers, that shared background could most accurately be described as politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage. Now, for some people, this was going too far! But for me, it was merely a logical progression leading to a factual and sociological observation. And, I've seen no study by academics or others offering persuasive evidence that the Hollywood control group could be accurately described in a significantly different manner. It seems that some of the Hollywood apologists simply can't handle the truth ... Aside from those few who have chosen to utilize the false accusation of anti- Semitism (what I call the anti-Semitic sword) in their effort to chill my free speech, others have simply taken the position that inquiries into the backgrounds of studio executives is for some reason inappropriate. On the other hand, these same Hollywood apologists readily admit that it is appropriate for the studio executives to utilize the enormous communications power of feature film to make bold, emotionally charged and sometimes outrageous or misleading statements about religion, politics, culture, ethnicity, race, regional populations, sexuality and all manner of other topics. If we accept the fundamental concept that movies, to a large extent, tend to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers, then it is completely appropriate to study whether there are positive correlations between what we see on the screen and the backgrounds of those who have the power to determine what is portrayed in movies."

The FILM INDUSTY REFORM MOVEMENT's investigation into the gender and ethnicity of past Hollywood film studio executive hiearchies. The listing is not exhaustive, but it points the obvious direction: COLUMBIA (near the bottom of page), MGM, PARAMOUNT, 20TH CENTURY FOX, WARNER BROTHERS, MCA/UNIVERSAL, DISNEY

The Emperor Miramaximus, by David Carr, New York, December 3, 2001
"[Harvey] Weinstein is often compared to the moguls of old—the doughty Jew among Wasp elites—but the analogies don't do justice to his broader cultural horsepower. Neither indie hustler nor studio boss, Weinstein is a different beast altogether, a New York City behemoth with avid fingers in all corners of the pie. He and his brother run a company that released more movies than any other in the U.S. in the year 2000 and had the eighth-largest box-office receipts. To say that the barbarian is at the gate is to miss the fact that he's already behind the velvet rope and iterating access. Indie movies, once a quaint province of grad students and industry losers, became a cash machine for the Weinstein brothers. His competition credits him with nothing more than being a skanky bargain shopper backed by gobs of Disney's money. They suggest that after Disney paid $60 million for Miramax in 1993, Weinstein spent his time buying his way to the Oscar platform and getting in touch with his inner thug by screwing over far more delicate artistic sorts ... '[Weinstein] owns you guys, all of you,' bitches one West Coast film executive. 'All media is controlled out of New York, and he is the king. He has the kind of Teflon none of us can understand."

New Software Improves Internet TV,
Canadian Jewish News, September 7, 2000
"As a strictly observant Orthodox Jew, Herbert Becker does not have a television in his home. That has not stopped him, however, from developing software that allows TV to be broadcast live on the Internet. Becker, founder and CEO of BEE Multimedia, has created the tools by which networks and cable companies can reach audiences through their computers the same way they now do through their TV sets. He claims to be the first to make this technology a reality."

Conrad Black and Pals to Launch The New York Sun,
New York Observer, 12.3/01
"Conrad Black [the Gentile pro-Israel mogul married to Jewish Zionist Barbara Amiel], the owner of the Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post, finally has at least a piece of a New York newspaper. A group of investors including Mr. Black intends to spend up to $15 million to launch a new daily newspaper expected to appear sometime early next year, a source familiar with the venture told Off the Record. The paper, likely to be called The New York Sun, will be edited by former Forward editor in chief Seth Lipsky along with his protégé, Ira Stoll, the editor of Smartertimes.com ... Backing the new paper, sources said, is a group of nine or 10 investors that includes Mr. Black—chairman and chief executive of Hollinger International Inc.—as well as Michael Steinhardt, a former hedge-fund manager and prominent Democratic Party donor, who up until mid-2000 owned half of The Forward but is still the paper’s vice chairman. Since Mr. Lipsky was pushed out as editor in chief at The Forward, he and Mr. Steinhardt have maintained close contact, sources said. In the ideological battle between Mr. Lipsky and The Forward’s board of directors—Mr. Lipsky’s neoconservative leanings did not sit well with the more liberal board—Mr. Steinhardt offered to buy the other half of the Jewish weekly in order to keep Mr. Lipsky at the helm. Rebuffed by the board, Mr. Lipsky ultimately left the paper in April 2000, and Mr. Stoll, who had been managing editor, followed later that summer."

Do Jews Run Hollywood? by Ben Stein, E! Online
"At mighty Paramount, the controlling stockholder is Sumner Redstone. Head of the studio is Jon Dolgen. Head of production is Sherry Lansing--all members of the tribe. At titanic Disney, the CEO is Michael Eisner, the world's most assimilated Jew, who might as well be a Presbyterian. Deputy head is Michael Ovitz, karate champ but also a Jew. Head of the studio is Joe Roth. At newly energized ICM, the top dogs are Jeff Berg and Jim Wiatt. At still overwhelming CAA, Jack Rapke and other members of my faith predominate. At William Morris, Jon Burnham and other Jews are, by and large, in the power positions. This has always been true in Hollywood."

Vivendi OKS $1