There may not have been any deals struck at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley retreat over the weekend, but it would be surprising if nothing emerged from this power-packed-per-square-inch gathering.
This year more than the usual CEOs showed up — FOMO is a powerful force — at a time when media dealmaking is at a fever pitch and technology leaders keep pushing AI’s disruptive force on every industry. The Trump era is also driving dealmaking; everyone knows that this government is not going to stand in the way of its friends, and is inclined to look the other way when properly incentivized. So the sense of making hay is very present.
FOMO is always a big part of every Sun Valley. But right now, with media in full chaotic disarray, the imperative is to fire up the jet and be there. With a new deal announced seemingly on a weekly basis, it’s better to be in the room and having the conversations than reading about it after the fact.
Comcast co-CEOs Brian Roberts and Mike Cavanagh needed to make clear that they are buyers, not sellers as they spin off NBCU from the broadband and mobile business.
Outgoing CEOs, including Disney’s Bob Iger and Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, needed to be there because they are no doubt looking for new opportunities.
Pretty much everybody showed up with the notable exception of Paramount CEO David Ellison, who is on the cusp of closing his deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. Still, his controversial CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss was in Sun Valley, which makes me wonder if it was awkward crossing paths with Anderson Cooper, who in May exited “60 Minutes” and attended as well.
The guest list included the tech elite — Apple CEO Tim Cook and his successor John Ternus, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. And a healthy representation from sports was there, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, National Hockey League (NHL) Commissioner Gary Bettman and billionaire Stan Kroenke, owner of Arsenal and the LA Rams, who spoke on a panel on Saturday with other team owners, Dan Gilbert (Cleveland Cavaliers) and John Henry (Boston Red Sox, Liverpool F.C.)
That’s not a surprise, since so much deal heat is being driven by the massive sports deals that we’ve reported on in the last two years.
The deal discussions often happen in random walkabouts or intentional pairings. I reached out to a half dozen people who were there, most did not want to talk. (This is not unusual, I assure you.)
According to my sources, Cook and Ternus were seen meeting with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Microsoft founder Bill Gates — who is battling a serious reputational turnabout that he’s been unable to shake — was spotted in a meeting with OpenAI’s Altman. Microsoft owns more than a quarter of OpenAI, but the two companies in May ended their exclusive partnership.
Other CEOs included Google’s Sundar Pichai, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and YouTube’s Neal Mohan. YouTube is the belle of the ball right now, having taken over traditional television and spawned the summer box office horror heroes Curry Barker and Kane Parsons. Meanwhile, Sarandos needs to figure out how to claw back the 40 percent loss in his company’s market cap over the past year and reverse serious declines in user engagement.
Netflix conquered Hollywood. But it faces even bigger giants in Silicon Valley.
Since it’s an election year, there were plenty of politicians around too, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
So where is entertainment in all this? According to my sources, Imagine’s Brian Grazer and mega-writer Taylor Sheridan (“Yellowstone” et al) did a panel on creativity moderated by Anderson Cooper. (Sheridan, who is based in Weatherford, Texas, was typically grumpy and apparently said he hadn’t been to Hollywood in eight years.)
What’s key here is context. As OpenAI pushes off its IPO into 2027, there is plenty of speculation about who is winning this technology sweepstakes that keeps promising to upend society. And at the same time, media and entertainment has to reconfigure itself into business models that will work for the next decade.
This year’s conference comes amid a flurry of dealmaking. As a reminder of the extraordinary pace of things, here’s a recap of just a few of the current deals, courtesy of my colleague Lucas Manfredi:
* Paramount acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery merger (pending)
* Charter-Cox merger (pending)
* Fox acquiring Roku (pending)
* Sky’s acquiring ITV’s media & entertainment arm (pending)
* Mediawan acquisition of Peter Chernin’s The North Road Company (pending)
* Netflix acquiring Ben Affleck’s InterPositive
* Electronic Arts acquisition by Silver Lake, Affinity Partners and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (pending)
* James Murdoch acquiring Vox and New York magazine
* Banijay Entertainment’s acquisition of RedBird IMI’s All3Media. But there’s still plenty of dealmaking left for the entertainment elite to consummate. We’re all waiting for Casey Wasserman to sell his stake in his talent agency as promised — does he think no one noticed?
Assets that have previously been floated as potential takeover targets include Lionsgate, Starz, AMC Networks and ITV Studios. Imax and Letterboxd have also had early talks to gauge interest in potential sales. Versant, spun off from Comcast, has been active on the M&A front, but is ultimately probably a sale target itself.
This is what I mean when I said this year is about FOMO as much as figuring out the next deal. The current disarray is going to be rearranged — and soon.
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