It felt like a year of contradictions. The huge corporations have never been bigger, yet the questions and criticism of Google and Facebook piled up quicker than Santa’s shopping list.
The BBC continued to lead the cultural landscape, yet is now at its most vulnerable. And despite the shadow of the new breed of corporate giants, the determined actions of individuals had far-reaching consequences.
Larry Page, the chief executive of Google, returned to the top spot, a reflection of the way in which the ever-expanding tech giant dominates our daily digital lives, from what we see to what we buy to whether we get lost on a night out.
But the question of what big companies do with our data – in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations about state surveillance – is the most prevalent of our time.
We ask whether it is a high watermark moment for Google, though it is not clear who might topple Page; issues of privacy and data are just as current for Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder who is No 2 in this year’s list.
In previous years this list has recognised the increasing power of the individual in communicating news and important information. This is still the case but, in compiling the power list for 2014, it seems there are still corporate giants who control that information and, perhaps more importantly, who gets to see it.
US tech companies dominate, with Apple chief executive Tim Cook in third after a year in which he emerged from the shadow of Steve Jobs, alongside Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo in sixth, a place behind Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post.
But it is not all about big business. Lenny Henry and Taylor Swift are both new entries in this year’s top 10 and are recognised for taking a stand – Henry for diversity, Swift against Spotify – the consequences of which are still being played out.
Elsewhere in the top 10 are BBC director general Tony Hall; Rupert Murdoch, boss of 21st Century Fox and News Corp; and Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre. Except Dacre now shares billing with Mail Online publisher (and his possible successor) Martin Clarke, a reflection of the website’s global growth and ambition.
Never before has MediaGuardian produced its list so late in the year and so for the first time, this 100 feels like a year in review. New entries indicative of the rapidly changing media landscape include Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg, the king of YouTube, Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos, and Vice Media’s Shane Smith.
No single organisation is represented more than the BBC. With the debate around its charter renewal and licence fee due to begin in earnest after the general election, it will be one of the big media stories of 2015 (although, given government criticism of its spending cuts coverage last week, you might think it had already started).
New talent this year includes actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Sheridan Smith, and Russell Brand. The No 100 spot, previously filled by the likes of Big Brother and the ghost of Lord Reith, is occupied by the quintessential modern digital media celebrity Kim Kardashian. Let’s hope she doesn’t break the MediaGuardian 100.
Some things stay the same. White men dominate the media industry, whether in the US or UK, and that is reflected by this list. Despite a real focus on the people who have an impact on the way we think and not just the way we spend our money, nearly four-fifths of the most powerful and influential people in the media industry are men. But only six of them are not white – Lenny Henry, culture minister Sajid Javid, eBay’s Pierre Omidyar, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, actor, writer and director Richard Ayoade, and Independent editor Amol Rajan.
Typically, the men at the top of our list run giant corporations that control what information we glean (Google), how we communicate with friends and family as well as the world (Facebook) and what sort of devices we use to do so (Apple).
The most powerful women also run large corporations with the power to make significant change to other people’s livelihoods (Rona Fairhead, the first woman to run the BBC Trust; “mega indie” chief Sophie Turner Laing; and Charlotte Moore, the controller of BBC1) but they are more likely to have influence through their creative efforts whether by talking to a new generation of young people (Taylor Swift and Zoella) or by writing TV drama that makes us think a bout the world in a different way (Sally Wainwright and Shonda Rhimes).
The fact that the media is still so dominated by men is no secret and this year women who called them out on it went mainstream, among them Lena Dunham and Laura Bates.
What does it take to get to the top of media? An Oxbridge degree definitely helps, while going to the so-called “Ivy Plus” universities, which include Stanford and MIT, helps in the US. Some 40% of our list went to one or other. You can go online and use our interactive guide to get a better sense of who these people are.
In the previous 14 years, listing the industry category in which our entries worked was relatively straightforward. But now not so much. How do you categorise Simon Cowell with his role as talent-spotter and on-screen judge as well as producer of top-selling content? Let alone Rupert Murdoch, whose vast empire spans newspapers, online, books, television and film? One thing we had to do was scrap the notion of a digital media category. In 2014, we are finally all-digital.
Meet the judges
Karen Blackett OBE, chief executive of Media–Com, media buying and planning agency
Adam Boulton, presenter of Sky News Tonight and Sunday Times political columnist
Matt Deegan, creative director at Folder Media, a radio and new media consultancy
Kim Fletcher, partner at PR firm Brunswick and former deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph
Neal Mann, multimedia innovations editor of the Wall Street Journal
Sue Ryan, journalist, travel writer, media consultant and founder of Henley Literary Festival
Marie O’Riordan, editor-in-chief of John Brown Media and former editor of Marie-Claire
Richard Sambrook, professor of journalism at Cardiff University’s Centre for Journalism and former BBC director of Global News
Kevin Sutcliffe, head of news programming at ViceNews in the UK and former editor of Channel 4’s Dispatches
Pat Younge, consultant and former chief creative officer of BBC Productions
Guardian:
Jane Martinson, head of media
John Plunkett, broadcasting correspondent
Julia Finch, business editor
Stuart Dredge, contributing editor, Technology
Frances Perraudin, digital journalist
Aisha Gani, digital journalist
