José Manuel Lara, president of Atresmedia and Planeta, dies

José Manuel Lara Bosch had presided over Antena 3 and Onda Cero since June 2003, after Planeta-Agostini became a shareholder. Since 2012 he became the president of the Atresmedia group, after the merger of Antena 3 with LaSexta.

This Saturday, the president of the Planeta and Atresmedia groups, José Manuel Lara, died in Barcelona at the age of 68.

Born in Barcelona in 1946 and son of the businessman and editor José Manuel Lara Hernández and María Teresa Bosch Carbonel, Lara Bosch was closely linked to the Planeta group since he was barely 17 years old, the publishing empire created by his father in 1949. In 1996 he was appointed CEO of the Group, beginning a strong process of diversification and internationalization.

Lara Bosch became captain of Planeta in 2003 after the death of her father with whom she had shared the direction of the publishing group since 1985.

His management helped Planeta turn the group, with a hundred companies, both owned and invested, into the main Spanish publishing conglomerate and a reference in numerous Spanish-speaking countries.

After Planeta and De Agostini acquired 25.1% of Antena 3 from Telefónica on June 16, 2003, Lara Bosch was appointed president of the television network. In 2012, Lara assumed the presidency of the Atresmedia group, after the merger of Antena 3 with LaSexta, constituting one of the main multimedia groups in Spain (Antena 3 TV, LaSexta, Onda Cero Radio, Europa FM and Melodía FM...).

The Planeta Group is also a reference shareholder in the newspaper La Razón and ADN and in the first Colombian communication group, Casa Editorial El Tiempo, editor of the leading newspaper in Colombia, El Tiempo and of the first local television channel in Bogotá, City TV, among many other publications.

The president of the Academy of Television Sciences and Arts, Manuel Campo Vidal, has recalled the importance of José Manuel Lara for the history of Communication in Spain, stating that "he was a man who inherited from his father the talent, the entrepreneurial spirit and a concept of a family business in which, before being the owner, he was the first employee. He contributed with the creation of one of the largest Spanish multimedia groups to the consolidation of freedom of expression in our country and was firmly committed to innovation, corporate social responsibility and the need "to create 'legal culture' for the defense of copyright. He transformed Grupo Planeta into a giant of Spanish culture, contributing to its expansion and internationalization."