Jaume Roures Llop (born 1950) is a Spanish businessman, film producer and

media mogul A media proprietor, media mogul or media tycoon refers to a entrepreneur who controls, through personal ownership or via a dominant position in any media-related company or enterprise, media consumed by many individuals. Those with significant co ...

from

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

. Roures is best known as the founder of the newspaper '' Público'' and as the CEO of the media group

Mediapro Mediaproducción, S.L.U., better known as Mediapro, is a multimedia communications group in Spain founded in April 1994 in Barcelona. The company is well involved in movie and television production. The company holds branch offices in Madrid, Se ...

. Considered a

left-wing nationalist Left-wing nationalism or leftist nationalism, also known as social nationalism, is a form of nationalism based upon national self-determination, popular sovereignty, national self-interest, and left-wing political positions such as social equali ...

, he was a member of Trotskyist and Anti-Francoist organizations in his youth.

Early life

Born in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

in 1950, Roures was a member of clandestine anti-francoist organizations such as

Comisiones Obreras The Workers' Commissions ( es, Comisiones Obreras, CCOO) since the 1970s has become the largest trade union in Spain. It has more than one million members, and is the most successful union in labor elections, competing with the Unión General de ...

(CC.OO.), the Workers' Front of Catalonia (FOC) and the

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...

Revolutionary Communist League (LCR). Arrested during the

Francoist dictatorship Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Sp ...

, he spent time imprisoned in the Barcelona's Cárcel Modelo from 1969 to 1971 as a political prisoner. 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.

Mass media businessman

Roures founded the production company

, primarily employed at its beginnings by the

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

's sports productions and the newscast services of

Canal Sur Canal Sur ('South Channel') is part of Radio y Televisión de Andalucía (RTVA), the public broadcasting company of Andalusia. It was created by means of the devolved powers given to this region by an Act of Parliament in its statute of autono ...

. In 2005, Gestora de Inversiones Audiovisuales La Sexta obtained the last of the DTT licenses granted during the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Mediapro had a stake in Grupo GAMP (the primary shareholder of the company, the other one being, at the time,

Televisa Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content. In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...

). The related TV channel,

LaSexta La Sexta (; "The Sixth"; stylized as laSexta) is a Spanish free-to-air television channel. It is privately owned and was originally founded on 18 March 2001 as Beca TV that began broadcasting on 1 April 2001, that same year. By 21 July 2003, the ...

, begin to broadcast in March 2006. 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 Josep Maria Benet Ferran (born 14 June 1957), better known as Tatxo Benet, is a journalist and Spanish businessman. Biography He studied Law (University of Barcelona in Lleida) and Information Sciences (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), alt ...

and Gerard Romy launched the daily newspaper '' Público'', which published its first issue on 26 September 2007. Vowing to draw disenchanted left-wing readers away from '' El País'', the print version of ''Público'' was successively edited by

Ignacio Escolar Ignacio Escolar García (born 20 December 1975 in Burgos) is a Spanish blogger and journalist. He currently leads the digital newspaper eldiario.es and he is also a political analyst in radio and television. He was founder and first director of ...

, and . Despite having achieved a substantial readership growth from 2008 to 2012, at the height of 2011 it had become apparent that the business model (with a heavy indebtedness) was not viable, and the company filed a layoff affecting a 20% of the workforce in 2011. Having filed for receivership on 3 January 2012, Roures and his partners resolved to close the print edition of ''Público'' on 24 February 2012. A group of 20 former Mediapubli employees continued publishing the online version without support from the publisher. 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. As of 2019, he held a 12% stake in Mediapro, primarily owned by Chinese company Orient Hontai Capital. In 2020, Roures promoted the launch of the think-tank 'Institut Sobiranies'.

Views

Roures is considered a

. He claims to preserve the ideological views from his youth. Roures has stated that he is in favour of the

right to self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a ''jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It stat ...

of the peoples. Despite claiming to have voted

CUP A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay, ...

in 2012, he has declared not to be pro-Catalan independence.

Filmography

;Producer

References

External links

Jaume Roures
at

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roures, Jaume 1950 births Living people Catalan nationalists Spanish Trotskyists Spanish mass media owners Spanish film producers People from Barcelona