THE bananas are real—but, contrary to rumour, the salver on which Richard Desmond's butler delivers them to him isn't silver: “One day,” Mr Desmond says hammily. He denies ordering anyone to stand in a cupboard, but admits to doing an impression of Hitler, or at least of Basil Fawlty, during a row with newspaper executives: “A bit of fun”, he protests. “I'd be intrigued to meet this bloke”, he says of the rogue Richard Desmond of legend.

In truth the real Mr Desmond's public outings have sometimes reinforced his toxic image. On January 12th he appeared before the Leveson inquiry, a broad investigation into press misconduct set up following revelations of phone hacking at the News of the World. In a stunningly undiplomatic performance, he described the Daily Mail's editor as a “fat butcher”. But the Desmond legend has obscured one of the most interesting things about him. He says his motivation is “beating the doubters”, and in the sense that he has succeeded commercially where others are failing, and when many predicted that he would also fail, he has achieved his goal.

Although misbehaviour at a Rupert Murdoch-owned paper prompted the Leveson inquiry, Mr Desmond poses one of its biggest quandaries. Last year his four national titles—the Daily Express, Daily Star and their Sunday counterparts—withdrew from what he calls the “useless, backbiting” Press Complaints Commission (PCC). That self-regulatory body is now seen as much too puny. The challenge for the inquiry and others is to devise a system of regulation in which Mr Desmond will participate, willingly or otherwise. Happily, perhaps, he describes Lord Hunt, the latest head of the PCC, who has proposed a new regime involving tougher sanctions, as “a proper bloke”.

But while he has little time for some regulators and some of his competitors, Mr Desmond is plainly attached to newsprint itself. His online presence is modest. “There's nothing like a paper”, he says. And his papers have been kind to him: they make £50m ($80m) a year, he estimates, at a time of generally declining circulation—though the Daily Star Sunday has benefited from the demise of the News of the World. (A few years ago, he says, he approached Mr Murdoch with a £1 billion offer for the Sun. “Aren't I lucky?”, he says of the bid's failure, since the Sun is now “tarnished” and “finished”.)

It is a similar story at Channel 5, which Northern & Shell, the holding company Mr Desmond founded in 1974 and wholly owns, bought in 2010 for €125m (£104m). A small, free-to-air operation in an increasingly multi-channel world—which struggled under the previous ownership of RTL, a giant German broadcaster—the channel didn't look appetising. Yet Mr Desmond projects a £43m profit this year.

“They thought they were running ITV,” he says of RTL's stewardship, referring to Britain's leading free-to-air broadcaster. Whether through luck, judgment, astute dealmaking, or all three, advertising revenue recovered as he stepped in. But Channel 5's programming has improved, too, drawing younger and more valuable audiences. Television is different to newspapers, he says, in that “everyone's not trying to kill each other, everyone's trying to do business together.”

A common view is that savage cuts explain Mr Desmond's returns: around 70 redundancies were announced at his papers this week, those profits notwithstanding. Some carp that Daily Express readers keep buying an ever-thinner paper only out of habit. Mr Desmond vigorously denies being simply a hatchet-wielding asset-stripper, adducing a big investment in a new printing plant, among others. He points out that several of his ventures, such as OK!, a celebrity magazine that competes with Hello! and appears in 21 countries, and a new Health Lottery, which has peeved the National Lottery, were created rather than acquired. Perhaps a fair summary is that he is good at spotting how to run a business more efficiently, whether by buying or replicating it.

The sackings help explain why he isn't widely loved. And his temper is infamous: former employees describe him as a bully, and worse—though several also say that he keeps his word. His conversation does indeed tend to the vituperative, notably class-based labels such as “pompous”, “posh”, “stuck-up” and “Etonian”, along with “crooks” and “hypocrites”. Mr Desmond left school at 14; his first job was as a cloakroom attendant. He likes Mr Murdoch, who he says treats him with respect.

His “adult” businesses haven't helped his image, either: Mr Desmond rejects the term “porn”, which he argues connotes criminality. But he is “proud” of his adult satellite channels, which have “been a good business”. He sold the saucy magazines for which he was once renowned in 2004. To his critics these holdings are symptomatic of a broader decline—or absence—of ethical standards at his papers. They cite his titles' fondness for anti-immigrant scaremongering. (Mr Desmond says his own politics are “a bit left”; the Cameron government “isn't strong enough”.)

Giving the punters what they want

But even the scrupulous ought to note Mr Desmond's prosperity, in volatile times and achieved against bigger rivals. Thorough co-operation between his businesses is part of it. Northern & Shell “bundle sells” advertising across formats. Its editors liaise; its products fiercely cross-promote both each other and the celebrities whom they manufacture through shows such as “Big Brother”. Other British media outfits look compartmentalised by comparison.

The model is based on a keen sense of the bottom line, but also of the audience, which gets exactly what it wants, in many media. Mr Desmond has only around 14% of the British newspaper market and 5% of TV. But in a fragmenting industry, his approach—zealous cost-control, combined with segmenting and owning a slice of the audience, in this case a downmarket one—is instructive. It works well enough for Northern & Shell to fuel occasional rumours of a listing, even if he might not be the likeliest front-man for an IPO. “Not today,” he says, “but who knows?”

He might prefer to be known and respected for his charity work, which has included fund-raising gigs with the RD Crusaders, a rock band featuring Roger Daltrey of The Who and Mr Desmond on drums, and a big donation to Moorfields Eye Hospital. He believes in both God and karma: “the more I give,” he says, “the better I do.” In this life, at least, Mr Desmond's rewards seem likely to be mostly financial.