Johannes "John" Hendrikus Hubert de Mol (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 own 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 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 among the Forbes magazine list of the 500 richest people in the world.
In May 2007 De Mol returned as one of the main share holders of Endemol together with the Italian company Mediaset of Silvio Berlusconi in a 2.6 billion Euro deal.
In 2010 a new Reality Sing Audition Show, The Voice of Holland, was launched by de Mol. It was an incredible success in the Netherlands and the formula was sold to several other countries around the globe. The Voice (of America) launched on April 27, 2011, with NBC and with John de Mol and Mark Burnett as Executive Producers. In the Voice, the singing auditions are 'blind': the jury is turned with their back to the competitors. Once 'selected' (by pushing a button), the juror turns towards the competitor. This concept, co-product of John de Mol and Dutch singing star Roel van Velzen, makes is 'All about the Voice'. After these Blind Auditions, the coaches will train their 8 competitors through knock-out battles and public voting rounds until there is one competitor left, who will be 'The Voice'. In the original Dutch series the four judges in the jury were: singer Angela Groothuizen, singer Roel van Velzen, singers Nick & Simon (acting as 1 judge) and singer Jeroen van der Boom. First winner in the Netherland: Ben Saunders, was chosen by all jurors during the Blind Audition. It took Ben seven words into his song, before three of the four judges selected him, pushed their button and had their chairs turn towards him. In 'The Voice' (USA), the four judges are singers Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine (lead singer of Maroon 5) and country music artist Blake Shelton. The US premiere of 'The Voice', the Blind Auditions, turned out to be the best NBC New Program Launch in over three years, with 12 million people watching.
Private life
De Mol was formerly married to singer and actress Willeke Alberti. The actor Johnny de Mol is their son.
From 1979 to 1982, he was romantically involved with Marga Scheide, member of the girl group Luv'.
Outside of television, De Mol controls large private equity fund which owned significant shares of auto manufacturer Spyker Cars and telecommunications company Versatel.
John's sister, actress Linda de Mol, appears in and presents some of his programmes, including the original Dutch version of Deal or No Deal, Miljoenenjacht (Hunt for Millions). She also presented one of Endemol's first productions, The DJ Kat Show.
From : www.wikipedia.org
