Haim Saban
Haim Saban is an Israeli-American media-mogul, a staunch Zionist and one of the biggest contributors to the campaigns of pro-Israel politicans in the US. He has also founded various centers and institutions to produce policy research favorable to Israel. He is a financial donor and founder of the Saban Institute for the Study of the American Political System at the University of Tel Aviv. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Brookings Institution. In 2002 he pledged $13 million to found the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution."[1]
Citizen Saban
Saban is the founder of Saban Entertainment and Fox Family Worldwide. More recently, he has made significant new gains. In 2003 he bought ProSiebenSat.1, Germany's largest privately-owned television network. [2] In 2006, he acquired Univision Communications, the largest Spanish-broadcasting television company in the US for the price of USD 12.3 billion. [3]
According to the Economist:
- At a broadcasting-industry conference last month in Cambridge, [Saban] not only expressed interest in acquiring ITV, but then went on to accuse the BBC and Sky News, a British satellite-channel owned by Rupert Murdoch, of putting out biased, overly pro-Arab coverage of the Middle East... His audience was left with the impression that this was “a man motivated by editorial concerns, not a businessman,” as one broadcasting executive put it. Officials at Ofcom, Britain's new media regulator, were amazed by what one called his “pig-ignorant” behaviour.[4]
Quotes
"I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel".
Affiliations
- Saban Center for Middle East Policy - Funder/Founder
- Saban Institute for the Study of the American Political System - Funder/Founder
- ProSiebenSat.1 - Owner
- Univision Communications - Owner
Related Articles
- ^Andrew Ross Sorkin, Schlepping to Moguldom(interview), New York Times, September 5, 2004
- ^Barbarian at the gates?, The Economist, October 2, 2003
- ^ Nimrod Avraham, [Saban buys US TV company http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3268868,00.html], YNet, June 29, 2006
- Dan Ackman, Mighty Morphin Haim Saban, Forbes.com, March 17, 2003.
