King of Kings

The hint was casually and artfully dropped at a London cocktail party by a member of the family: the Berrys would like to sell their controlling interest in the sprawling Amalgamated Press Ltd. magazine and periodical empire (72 publications). Hovering within earshot was an executive of the Daily Mirror-Sunday Pictorial group who knew big news when he heard it; he hustled the word back to the ears of his board chairman. This week, barely a month after he got the message, hulking (6 ft. 4 in.), baby-faced Cecil Harmsworth King, 57, bought control of Amalgamated for a bid in excess of $45 million, thereby became ruler of the world's most widespread press empire.

Not even King himself has had time to add up all the statistics of his new domain. With a women-and-children-first editorial policy. Amalgamated peddles everything from Baby's Own Annual to Love Story Library, puts out 29 weeklies, e.g., prim, prosperous Woman's Weekly (circ. 1,615, 778), and nine monthlies. Like the Mirror-Pictorial, Amalgamated has its assorted paper mills and TV stations. King already had Britain's strongest newspaper chain anchored firmly by London's raucous Daily Mirror (circ. 4,526,453) and the equally raucous Sunday Pictorial (circ. 5,378,242). King's anticipated post-tax profits from magazines and major newspapers alone: $10.5 million.

Even sweeter for King is the fact that he now stands alone as a giant of the press, just as did his famed uncle, Alfred Harmsworth, first and last Lord Northcliffe and turn-of-the-century founder of Britain's popular press. (Amalgamated was founded by Northcliffe, strayed to other hands after he died in 1922.) King (TIME, Dec. 5, 1955) has the level, grey-blue eyes and careless forelock of his uncle, whose picture hangs behind his blacktopped desk. But the two men are fundamentally different: the mercurial Northcliffe had a sure instinct for mesmerizing the masses; King is an intellectual with good background (Winchester, Oxford), who had to acquire the tricks of peddling blood, bosoms and ballyhoo. Says he: "If I produced the sort of paper I really wanted to read, no one else would want to."

Organization Man King rules by delegating authority to able associates, e.g., brash Editorial Director Hugh Cudlipp, ironing out differences, keeping a sharp eye on the ledger. When methodical Cecil King heard last week that a rival bid had been entered for Amalgamated, he was certain that his board of directors would up his offer as necessary, took off as scheduled for Africa, confident that he would become the King of press kings.

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