John de Mol, the Dutch media tycoon and creator of Big Brother, was described by a colleague as “single-minded to the point of monomania”. It now looks as if this persistence could pay off as the chain-smoking Dutchman moves to snap up RDF Media, the Wife Swap maker that was forced to apologise last year for footage wrongly suggesting that the Queen had stormed out of a photo shoot.

It emerged yesterday that Mr de Mol’s investment company, Cyrte Investments, has teamed up with RDF management, including David Frank, the chief executive, to make a 120p-a-share offer for the independent production group, valuing it at about £52 million. With the debt market in tatters, pulling off funding for such a deal is an achievement, but no surprise, given that the billionaire is known for his steely ambition and his love of making a deal.

The one thing he is said to love more than making deals is taking risks. He proved this in 1999 when, to the consternation of his colleagues, he turned down Pearson’s offer of more than £1 billion to buy Endemol. He went on to sell it the following year to Telefónica for €5.5 billion (£4.6 billion). Seven years and several writedowns later, he bought it back for €3.1 billion with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister and media tycoon, and Goldman Sachs. Mr de Mol began as a radio presenter before moving into TV production.

After creating early reality-TV gems such as Love Letters, in which three couples competed for prizes including a live wedding, he coined the phrase “emotainment” for shows that exploit emotions to make money. And make money he did. Big Brother, which united TV, telephony and the internet, became one of the biggest-grossing reality-TV shows. The media industry is waiting to see what he will do with RDF if he does win control.