Northern & Shell is a British publishing group, founded in December 1974 and owned since then by Richard Desmond. Formerly a publisher of pornographic magazines including Penthouse and Asian Babes, it published the Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday, and the magazines OK!, New! and Star until these were sold to Trinity Mirror in February 2018. Northern & Shell also owned three entertainment television channels: Channel 5, 5* and 5USA until 2015. It owned Portland TV, which operates pornographic TV channels including Television X and Red Hot TV; the company sold Portland in April 2016.

Richard Clive Desmond is a British publisher, businessman, and former pornographer. According to the 2021 Sunday Times Rich List, Desmond was the 107th richest person in the United Kingdom. He is the founder of Northern & Shell, a publisher known for running The Health Lottery and for having owned a variety of pornographic titles and of celebrity magazines, Britain's Channel 5, pornographic television network Portland, and Express Newspapers.