He first came to prominence when he was selling radios in Ontario, and to give his customers more programmes to listen to, decided to launch his own radio station. He then moved into newspapers, becoming as wealthy and important in Canada as the press barons in the United Kingdom. He aspired to such a peerage but was denied it unless he moved residence to the UK. He invited British newspaper owners to sell to him, the first doing so being "The Scotsman" and he soon formed a commercial television company which gained the first ITV franchise in Scotland. From the substantial profits of commercial television he bought many titles such as "The Times" and Kemsley's Newspapers which published "The Sunday Times".