John Thompson, the newspaper executive widely credited with turning around the circulations of the Star and Ireland on Sunday, has died aged 63.
Mr Thompson was chief executive of Associated Newspapers Ireland since 2001, when Ireland on Sunday was bought by the group. He was also responsible for Buy & Sell. The group's stable grew under his stewardship and he was involved in the launch of the free-sheet Metro and the Irish Daily Mail.
Before this appointment, Mr Thompson was the managing director of the Star from 1988. He is widely credited with making the Star a major player in the industry.
Mr Thompson, a Dubliner, started his career at the age of 18 in Ark Advertising and O'Keeffes. He then joined the Creation Group and worked with Hugh McLoughlin and Gerry McGuinness and was involved in the start of the Sunday World in 1973. Joining Smurfit, he was involved in U magazine and was deputy managing director of the Farmers' Journal in the 1980s.
He was a member of the management committee of the National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI), the representative body for Ireland's national newspapers.
Yesterday, Frank Cullen, the co-ordinating director of NNI, paid tribute to him. "John Thompson was a great newspaper man whose commitment and dedication to the industry in Ireland yielded extraordinary results and great personal achievement. He was a wonderful person and his passing has created a great void for those of us who were privileged to have counted him as a friend and a colleague," he said.
Paul Drury, executive editor of the Irish Daily Mail, said: "He loved the business of publishing. He thought of himself as a publisher and took great pride in it. He was a brilliant salesman, and he always believed 100 per cent in what he was selling and whatever he was doing he brought a professionalism to it."
