8. Ed Richards

Job: Chief executive of Ofcom

Age: 41

Industry: Regulation

Staff: 776

Salary: £308,930(including bonus, benefits and pension payments)

2006 ranking:77

Ed Richards was new in the rankings of the media 100 in the year 2001.

In 2002 he was ranked 15th. At that time he was working as the Downing Street media policy adviser, working in the political field. Prior to that he was working for Gordon Brown.

In the year 2006 he was ranked 77th in the media 100. Last year he was ranked 8th.

Richards has worked for both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

Richards is one of this year's biggest risers, up nearly 70 places to number eight. He was lower last year because he had not yet been appointed to replace Carter as head of Ofcom.

It was as a media adviser to No 10 that he helped draft the Communications Act that brought Ofcom into being.

Ofcom's recent interventions read like a list of the industry's biggest stories of the year so far - the Celebrity Big Brother race row, the premium-rate call-TV scandal, and BskyB's purchase of a 17.9% share in ITV.

Under his predecessor, Ofcom had appeared overly sympathetic to advertisers and broadcasters and seemed happiest as an economics-based regulator. Under Richards, it has begun to show its teeth.

The new regime made its first significant decision last year when it banned junk food advertising around children's TV programmes.