Jaume Roures Llop (born 8 September 1950) is a Spanish businessman, film producer and media mogul from Catalonia. Roures is best known as the founder of the newspaper Público and as the CEO of the media group Mediapro. Considered a left-wing nationalist, he was a member of Trotskyist and Anti-Francoist organizations in his youth.
Jaume Roures
| |
|---|---|
Roures in 2009
| |
| Born | (1950-09-08) 8 September 1950 (age 73)
Barcelona, Spain
|
| Occupation(s) | Businessman, film producer, political activist and media mogul |
| Known for |
|
Born in Barcelona in 1950,[1] Roures was a member of clandestine anti-francoist organizations such as Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO.), the Workers' Front of Catalonia (FOC) and the Trotskyist Revolutionary Communist League (LCR).[2]
Arrested during the Francoist dictatorship, he spent time imprisoned in the Barcelona's Cárcel Modelo from 1969 to 1971 as a political prisoner.[3]
Roures began a career as sports journalist in TV3—the Catalan public television channel created in 1983—serving for eight years at the helm of the Department of Sports' News and Productions.[1]
Roures founded the production company Mediapro, primarily employed at its beginnings by the Canal+'s sports productions and the newscast services of Canal Sur.[4]
In 2005, Gestora de Inversiones Audiovisuales La Sexta obtained the last of the DTT licenses granted during the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.[5] Mediapro had a stake in Grupo GAMP (the primary shareholder of the company, the other one being, at the time, Televisa).[5] The related TV channel, LaSexta, begin to broadcast in March 2006.[6]
By means of the publisher 'Mediapubli, Sociedad de Publicaciones y Ediciones S.L.' (created in February 2007), Roures and other partners such as Tatxo Benet and Gerard Romy launched the daily newspaper Público,[7] which published its first issue on 26 September 2007.[8] Vowing to draw disenchanted left-wing readers away from El País,[9] the print version of Público was successively edited by Ignacio Escolar, Félix Monteira [es] and Jesús Maraña [es].[10] Despite having achieved a substantial readership growth from 2008 to 2012,[11] at the height of 2011 it had become apparent that the business model (with a heavy indebtedness) was not viable,[12] and the company filed a layoff affecting a 20% of the workforce in 2011.[12]
Having filed for receivership on 3 January 2012, Roures and his partners resolved to close the print edition of Público on 24 February 2012.[13] A group of 20 former Mediapubli employees continued publishing the online version without support from the publisher.[14] However, on 23 May 2012, the receiver granted the print and online Mediapubli properties to Display Connectors S.L, a company created in February 2012 and participated by Roures and other Mediapubli people.[15]
As of 2019, he held a 12% stake in Mediapro, primarily owned by Chinese company Orient Hontai Capital.[16]
In 2020, Roures promoted the launch of the think-tank 'Institut Sobiranies'.[17]
In October 2023, the board of Mediapro determined the exit of Roures as managing partner of the company, reportedly at request of majority shareholder Southwind Group and minority shareholder WPP.[18]
Roures is considered a left-wing nationalist.[19] He claims to preserve the ideological views from his youth.[2] Roures has stated that he is in favour of the right to self-determination of the peoples.[20] Despite claiming to have voted CUP in 2012, he has declared not to be pro-Catalan independence.[20][2]
