Some of the most powerful people in media and technology are arriving Tuesday in Sun Valley, Idaho, for Allen & Co’s secretive gathering, ready to talk deals, politics and, perhaps more than in previous years, potential regulations surrounding social media. The retreat is off the record, but here are the topics likely to dominate discussions among groups large and small, planned or impromptu.
The escalating streaming-media wars. Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected at Sun Valley. In years past, he was usually accompanied by Eddy Cue, senior vp of Internet software and services, who oversees iTunes, Apple Music and more. Apple is readying a competitor to Netflix and needs content, but most of the big media companies aren’t in the mood to license much of theirs because they have current and upcoming streamer services of their own to feed.
Disney CEO Bob Iger was invited to Sun Valley, and he may be most eager to discuss Disney+, the streaming service set to launch in November. Iger has been letting content licenses lapse at Netflix in order to beef up the offering at Disney+, much to the chagrin of Netflix, whose top executives, CEO Reed Hastings and chief content officer Ted Sarandos, may not be at this year’s Sun Valley gathering.
It’s unclear if anyone from WarnerMedia will be in Sun Valley, where former Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara was a regular prior to stepping down amid a sex scandal. WarnerMedia is also readying a Netflix competitor, as is NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast. Ron Meyer, vice chairman of NBCU, might attend the gathering this year and will no doubt be eager to tout the benefits of his company’s upcoming streamers over those of the others.
Who will buy Univision? The Spanish-language media company said June 3 it is for sale, and Haim Saban, a board member and investor, will no doubt be pitching the company as an acquisition target for a larger conglomerate while attending Sun Valley. Disney could make a viable suitor, says Jimmy Schaeffler of the Carmel Group, given its desire to poke holes in rival Comcast, which owns Telemundo. Plus, Hispanics are a fast-growing segment who already make up 20 percent of the U.S. population.
But Disney is still digesting its $71.3 billion acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox, so it might not have the appetite for Univision. Thus, Saban might have more luck with Shari Redstone, who is attending Sun Valley at a time when CBS and Viacom, both of which are controlled by her and her father, Sumner, are considering a merger, and some on Wall Street speculate the combination might still fall short as conglomerates grow their power, as did WarnerMedia when AT&T scooped it up for $108.7 billion, including debt. Adding Univision into the CBS-Viacom mix might be just what the doctor ordered.
Fox Corporation, made up of the assets Disney didn’t purchase and led by CEO Lachlan Murdoch (also in Sun Valley), might be attracted to Univision for its news and sports, especially since it is set on July 20 to relaunch Univision Deportes Network as TUDN, a multi-platform outlet that will focus on soccer and other sports appealing to Hispanics
But it could be difficult to get much more for Univision than the $12.3 billion its private investors paid for it in 2007. “The Hispanic media story hasn’t really worked beyond the nice market share gains for Telemundo at Univision’s expense,” says Steven Birenberg of Northlake Capital Management.
What about Starz? Neither Joe Ianniello nor Bob Bakish, CEOs of CBS and Viacom, respectively, will be attending Sun Valley this year, but Shari Redstone is likely not only to be pressed about her desire to merge those two but also her interest in Starz, a channel group owned by Lionsgate.
CBS may have already offered Lionsgate $5 billion for Starz, news of which had the parent company’s stock leaping 15 percent in mid-May. While Starz is duplicative of Showtime for CBS, some observers say CBS needs it to compete with HBO, which has 140 million worldwide subscribers, while a combined Starz and Showtime would boast less than 60 million.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter