John de Mol, Jr.

Johannes Hendrikus Hubert "John" de Mol, Jr. (born 24 April 1955) is a Dutch media tycoon. De Mol is one of the men behind production companies Endemol and Talpa.

Endemol

De Mol, a well known personality in the Netherlands, acquired his fortune producing television programmes. In 1997-1999 he developed the highly popular reality television series Big Brother with his eponymous production company, John de Mol Produkties. In 1994 his company merged with Joop van den Ende TV-Producties into Endemol, but it still functioned on its own. He also produced Fear Factor, Love Letters, 1 vs. 100 and Deal or No Deal (Miljoenenjacht) for Endemol. De Mol sold his share of Endemol in 2000 to Telefonica, but continued to serve as creative director until 2004. In 2005, he was listed on the Forbes Magazine list of the 500 richest people in the world.

In May 2007 De Mol returned as one of the main shareholders of Endemol together with the Italian company Mediaset of Silvio Berlusconi in a 2.6 billion Euro deal.