Sun Valley retreat a convergence of old, new media elite

The sun always seems to shine in Sun Valley when the top brass from media and technology companies convene at the Idaho resort every July for a deep-think retreat hosted by investment banker Herbert Allen.

But it's the darkest of thoughts racing through minds of the media power elite as they go between high-level meetings, golf and family activities:

How can they survive the rapid-fire technological changes transforming their industries and changing the way people get news and entertainment?

Conveniently, many of the power players who control major Internet and technology companies are on hand to discuss strategies for the future of distributing video, music, text and other content through the Internet, Web-enabled cellphones and other digital means.

"Bucolic it may be, but this is a chessboard," said Heather Goodchild, chief media analyst for the Standard & Poor's credit-rating service. "You've got major, major players there thinking through some big strategic questions."

This year's five-day conference, whose proceedings are private, formally kicked off Wednesday.

Attendees are among the most powerful figures in media: News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who is in advanced talks to buy Dow Jones & Co.; and such chief executives as Time Warner's Dick Parsons, Walt Disney Co.'s Robert Iger and CBS' Leslie Moonves.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are guests, as is Intel Chairman Craig Barrett.

Also, Yahoo's two top players — Chairman Terry Semel, who was ousted as CEO less than a month ago amid shareholder frustration; as well as Jerry Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo who took his place.

A leader of the Internet world, Yahoo has big problems of its own, lagging behind Google in lucrative search advertising. Earlier this year, there was talk the company was discussing a combination with Microsoft.

And yes, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, a regular attendee, and his bridge buddy, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, are guests.

Besides the pillars of the media and technology establishment, some intriguing guests are coming from companies just beginning to make names for themselves. They could show media dinosaurs and technology giants new tricks — or new takeover targets.

Janus Friis used to be reviled by record labels for helping to create Kazaa, a music file-swapping service. But he's back on the good side of Big Media with a new venture called Joost, which delivers video over the Internet onto PCs — legally.

Also invited is Owen Van Natta, the chief operating officer of Facebook, one of the hottest Internet properties. Facebook is a leader in social networking, which allows people to post profiles, share content and interact with friends over the Internet.

Media companies are intrigued by Facebook and companies like it, which represent an efficient, fast and potentially low-cost way of accumulating audiences and attracting ad dollars online — just as newspapers, radio and TV struggle to hold onto their audiences.

Amid all of the high-minded discussions about the future of media distribution, certain guests are not likely to be sharing small talk over rounds of golf.

Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone is a guest, as is CEO Philippe Dauman, but don't expect to see them with Google's founders or CEO Eric Schmidt.

After months of talks reached an impasse, Viacom slapped Google with a $1 billion lawsuit in March, claiming Google's YouTube video-sharing site was engaged in "brazen disregard" of intellectual-property law by allowing users to post clips from Viacom's properties, including Comedy Central and MTV.

That's the kind of conflict between traditional media and emerging technology that many media honchos would like to avoid.

To that end, technology entrepreneurs with intriguing new business models for media distribution are also on the guest list.

They include Marc Andreesen, a founder of Netscape, whose new company Ning allows people to create their own social networks; as well as top officials from two other buzzworthy Internet companies — article aggregator Digg and professional-networking site LinkedIn.

Yet even as technological innovation mints new winners, not all manage to stay on top. To see how quickly things change, consider a recent remark by Rupert Murdoch.

The world's most powerful media kingpin pulled off what many consider a master stroke two years ago by buying online social-hangout site MySpace for what turned out to be a bargain price of $580 million.

Now, Murdoch appears to be having second thoughts. Reports have circulated he'd like to swap MySpace for an ownership stake in Yahoo.

In June, he lamented to a Wall Street Journal interviewer that online users weren't necessarily abandoning newspapers for MySpace.

"I wish they were," Murdoch said. "They're all going to Facebook at the moment."