At Sun Valley 2024, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav predicted a surge of media M&A and said he didn’t care who became president as long as deals got done.Four months later, Donald Trump won the White House and purged the watchdogs of the former regime, as many executives had hoped. With 2025 now past the halfway point, mergers have been muted, and Trump is laying legal siege to media companies as his hand-picked FCC launches investigations into their journalism or DEI practices. That stark reality gives moguls nestling in the woods at this year’s Allen & Company annual retreat much to ponder as they gather around campfires, take hikes and – symbolism alert! – paddle the rapids.Sun Valley is typically associated with deals, given the number of potentates it draws, and a handful of notable M&A moves have indeed originated there over the decades. But it’s more about the schmooze. Plus, the odd backdrop to this year’s event is the fact that the highest-profile media transactions lately have involved entities splitting up. not merging. For now, it seems companies need to pare down in order to grow again, though consolidation will surely return given the stress on traditional business models.AI is a major theme this year, with the same tech giants spending hundreds of billions on the technology also facing regulatory pressure. The president also continues to wage tariff wars with U.S. trading partners, which has buffeted financial markets, destabilized global trade and investment, and left companies and countries unsure of where they stand. (Maybe attendees vexed by Trump policies could track down Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who have been spotted on the mountain.)Netflix, trouncing its traditional media rivals for some time per industry metrics and on the stock market, has become a template. Unlike its legacy media rivals, the streaming giant has no declining assets to manage. Comcast and Warner Bros. Discovery, by contrast, have significant exposure to linear TV, which continues to decline in terms of viewership and revenue. In unexpectedly quick succession, both companies announced plans to separate their streaming and studios businesses from linear cable networks. Disney and Hearst are exploring a sale of A+E Global Media. That much standalone linear cable isn’t likely to be standalone for long. CEOs have all but promised consolidation, Wall Street expects it and it’s hard to imagine conversations will not touch on alliances and next steps.Last year at Sun Valley, Zaslav was high on Venu, a sports streaming joint venture with Disney and Fox. The service wound up being abandoned before its launch after a federal judge ruled in favor of Fubo in the sports-centric streamer’s antitrust lawsuit against the companies. Instead, Disney opted to acquire Fubo, and Fox is using what it learned (from tens of millions in R&D expenses) to launch a new streaming service this fall.Pretty much all of the players involved here emerged one by one at the small Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey, Idaho outside Sun Valley on Tuesday. Up to 175 private jets land at the airstrip in a single day, according to press reports, for the so-called summer camp for billionaires that mixes group activities and communal meals with free play and lectures. Press is not allowed inside the event, except for a couple of panel moderators, but reporters set up shop along the periphery and grab who they can. CNBC is a frequent stop, with some of its gets generating more news than the official goings-on inside the resort.Disney CEO Bob Iger, in shorts, touched down with wife Willow Bay, while Zaslav disembarked with a tan denim jacket, flanked by CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, who will run the new standalone linear TV company. Apple’s SVP of Services Eddy Cue turned up, as did OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, all T-shirt and shades. AI, according to PwC’s mid-year deals outlook, is poised to redefine how creators, publishers and other stakeholders generate and enhance value within their respective domains. Maybe the others should all copy his look next year without asking.Apple CEO Tim Cook, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and CFO Spencer Neumann sported polos and khakis. Andy Jassy is in jeans. As Us Weekly would say, moguls – they’re just like us!Disney’s four segment chairs, Jimmy Pitaro, Dana Walden, Josh Amaro and Alan Bergman are at Sun Valley again this year, chicks following Iger across the road. (Metaphorically, not actually.) The Disney board has said it will name Iger’s (second) successor in early 2026 ahead of his planned retirement at the end of the year. So this may be the last time all four make the trek.Disney’s former CEO and Iger’s predecessor, Michael Eisner, is at the conference. So is Eisner’s short-lived president of Disney a long time ago, Michael Ovitz. The former Hollywood power broker sparked a shareholder lawsuit when he was ousted from the company in 1996 after just 14 months on the job but with a $140 million severance package. Good times.Robert Thomson, the feisty and recently re-upped CEO of News Corp. was seen grinning in a baseball cap and floral button-down, untucked. No pics or reports have surfaced yet on Lachlan or Rupert Murdoch, who usually attend. Fox declined to comment on their whereabouts.Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and President Mike Cavanagh are regulars. A new face is Ravi Ahuja, who recently took over as president and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. He is there with his boss, Hiroki Totoki, chief executive of SPE’s giant parent Sony Corp. Japanese goods (though not movies and TV shows) will face stiff import duties from Trump unless a trade deal is reached by August 1.Shari Redstone, a mainstay of the conference in recent years, is absent. The controlling shareholder of Paramount Global was diagnosed with thyroid cancer earlier this year. At Sun Valley 2024, Paramount had just about clinched its sale to David Ellison’s Skydance. That’s still dragging on although the recent settlement of a Donald Trump-60 Minutes lawsuit may finally put it on a faster track at the FCC.Skydance CEO David Ellison wasn’t initially set to attend but is now among the guests.Herb Allen’s boutique investment bank has hosted the conference every summer since 1983. Deals that have percolated through Sun Valley include Disney’s acquisition of ABC, Jeff Bezos buying the Washington Post and two ill-starred megadeals involving Time Warner -– its 2018 acquisition by AT&T and its 2001 merger with AOL. Last year. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at Sun Valley the league was considering allowing private equity investment in its teams. The next month, it became official.Other attendees include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan; LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yangl Wasserman Media Group CEO Casey Wasserman; Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer; Chris Silberman, founding partner of ICM Partners (now part of CAA); Boston Red Sox owner John Henry; Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone, actress Candice Bergen; and CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King.Beyond the traditional media world, there are sightings of Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase; Walmart CEO Doug McMillon; Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone; and PayPal chairman Ohn Donahoe. General Motors CEO Mary Barra (who also sits on the Disney board), Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Angie’s List CEO Joey Levin and Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify are in the mix, as are the well-connected Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision, and Sheryl Sandberg, former chief operating officer of Meta.Non corporate types are also invited, among them Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer and Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp –probably not white-water rafting with Jared and Ivanka.
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