On April 11 in the year 1925, one of the entrepreneurs who found wealth in newspaper publishing was born in Montreal, Canada. His name was Pierre Peladeau, the founder of Quebecor, the mother company of several Canadian newspapers and other media companies.

Pierre Peladeau was the son of a timber businessman who lost his fortune in the 1929 stock market crash. He earned a degree in philosophy from the Université de Montréal and a law degree at McGill University. In 1950, he acquired Le Journal de Rosemont, a community paper using a $1,500 loan from his mother.

In 1964, Pierre Peladeau established the newspaper Le Journal de Montréal, taking advantage of a labor strike that had plagued the leading paper. Le Journal would later become the third-largest newspaper in Canada and the biggest French newspaper in Quebec. The following year, he established Quebecor, Inc. as a holding company for his media ventures. In 1977, he put up a newspaper in Pennsylvania but closed it after four years of losses. Fortunately, Le Journal was profitable enough to provide the cash he needed to expand his media empire.

Pierre Peladeau went on to build his own printing press and a large newsprint factory. He also acquired newspapers in the other major cities of Canada and launched several magazine titles. In all his newspapers, he emphasized what the topics that the public wanted most: sex, scandals, and sports. Later, he formed a multimedia company as a vehicle for his investment in television broadcasting.

Pierre Peladeau died of heart attack in 1997 at the age of 72. He had married twice and had seven children.

References
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/five-things-to-know-about-quebecor-378024761.html
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pierre-peladeau/
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/27/business/pierre-peladeau-72-leading-quebec-newspaper-publisher.html