Uzan, Cem (1960–)

Cem Cengiz Uzan is a Turkish businessman-turnedpolitician. He is best known for his launch of the first private Turkish television channel in 1990 and for his political campaign in the 2002 general elections. Uzan is also known worldwide for fraud and racketeering because his family's cell-phone provider business, Telsim, defaulted on a huge loan to Nokia and Motorola.

Uzan launched Turkey's first private television channel, Star, with ex–Prime Minister Turgut Özal's son, which violated the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation's constitutional monopoly. Even though this led to a severe controversy about a private channel's legality for a couple of years, in the long run it symbolized the initial step of de facto deregulation of broadcasting in Turkey.

In 2002 Uzan announced that he would put his own ...