July in full swing sees top media executives and an impressive political group gather at a famous mountain resort to hike, chat and whitewater raft. The elixir of relaxed closeness distilled in the rustic woods of Sun Valley has been credited with creating a number of landmark deals over the decades.
But could a deal be undone this year? It’s unlikely, but Shari Redstone, who controls Paramount, and Barry Diller, who might want to, are both present, and Par’s recent merger agreement with Skydance has a 45-day window for other interested buyers to to enter
Skydance CEO David Ellison isn’t in Sun Valley, but he’ll likely be a major studio owner-operator next year.
With the media and entertainment industry continuing to undergo unprecedented changes, broadcast packages, sports rights, the overall state of film, TV and technology, as well as the current political climate are in the mix at the conference, which has been hosted annually since 1983 From boutique investment bank Allen & Co. Open AI co-founder Sam Altman is attending, along with Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy. Patriarch Rupert Murdoch and son Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox, join Disney boss Bob Iger and Warner Bros. chief executive. Discovery, David Zaslav for an agenda of conversations, meetings and good nature. Executives from NBCUniversal parent Comcast are preoccupied with the Summer Olympics in Paris starting later this month, and it wasn’t immediately clear who at the company is participating.
Tech moguls and titans began arriving yesterday, private jets filling the small Idaho town’s airport.
Iger, who will leave Disney at the end of 2026, is joined by Dana Walden, Alan Bergman and Josh D’Amaro, as well as CFO Hugh Johnston. He wants the successor this time around after his previous CEO pick, Bob Chapek, fell flat and was ousted, leading to Iger’s second turn at the helm. The search is underway and he is preparing for life after Disney by looking, with his wife Willow Bay, to make a major investment in the Angel City FS women’s soccer team.
Walden, co-chairman of Disney Entertainment with Bergman, oversees the company’s complete portfolio of entertainment media, news and content businesses globally, including broadcast. Bergman directs films, both theatrical and broadcast, including Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. D’Amaro runs Disney Experiences led by theme parks and resorts.
Sun Valley can be seen as part of succession planning as all three interact with other participants.
Dana Walden, Alan Bergman and Josh D’Amaro
Disney
The executive crowd and wealthy political donors will mingle with some of the nation’s most dynamic Democratic governors, including Gretchen Whitmer of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland Josh Shapiro was invited but is staying in Harrisburg for ongoing negotiations of the budget. All have doubled down on support for President Biden amid calls for him to drop out as a presidential candidate after that disastrous debate two weeks ago. Biden says he won’t, and is currently hosting a NATO 75 celebrationth birthday in Washington, DC
Whitmer, who was the target of an (unsuccessful) kidnapping plot, has been out again this week defending Biden and talking about her new book. True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between.
Shari Redstone, meanwhile, may turn the page on Allen & Co after this year as she prepares to exit the business. It has been exploring potential deals and partnerships for several years at the event, but arrived at Sun Valley 2024 after literally just clinching Paramount’s sale to Skydance. It is unlikely that she would abandon Ellison after so many months spent trying on a combination that she favors for a combination of reasons. But Paramount is a publicly traded company, and under the terms of the deal anyone could be raised in the next month and a half.
Sun Valley has several other former or potential suitors. Sony Pictures Entertainment, with Apollo, was looking at Paramount’s books, but has pulled out for now amid regulatory complications and the rise of Skydance. “There may have been other scenarios that could have played out in other ways, but this seems to be the current scenario at the moment,” SPE chief Tom Rothman told Deadline this week. Kenichiro Yoshida, CEO of SPE parent Sony Corp., which also includes music, gaming and electronics, will be in Sun Valley with Hiroki Totoki, the giant company’s COO and CFO.
Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, who also spoke with Redstone about a possible combination, wouldn’t miss Sun Valley where, in recent years, he has speculated about deals to come once WBD gets its financial house in order after the merger.
Merger mania has generally been tempered by challenges, or the threat of them, from an extremely proactive FTC and federal regulators, though that could change if the next administration is Republican. The deals that have flowed through Sun Valley stem from Jeff Bezos’ acquisition of The Washington Post and Warner Media’s merger of AT&T, by which time AOL bought Time Warner and Disney bought ABC.
Most pressing for Zaslav right now may be basketball with WBD looking likely to lose its long-standing rights deal with the NBA. Here’s a shot at impressing league commissioner Adam Silver, also at the confab, by giving the company some games.
A number of sports powerhouses will be on the Idaho stage at a time when tens of billions of dollars are changing hands in pursuit of increasingly valuable rights. With the NBA poised to announce a new set of rights deals, multiple reports in recent weeks have indicated that Disney/ESPN has renewed its deal, with Amazon Prime Video and NBCU coming on board as the new holders. rights. WBD’s Turner, who has developed NBA games since the 1980s, appears to be on the outside looking in, but his close relationship with the league and contractual right to match rival offers could keep him in the mix. Turner runs NBA.com and handles production for NBA TV, which could make it difficult for the league to cut ties. Talent and fans have also been clamoring for the possible end of TNT Inside the NBAthe most popular studio sports show in existence.
Once the NBA rights are finalized, the largest remaining property will be the UFC. Disney acquired the rights from Fox in 2018, paying $1.5 billion. The price is expected to rise significantly, given that Disney’s deal came in 2018, before major streaming players Prime Video, Apple and Netflix began buying up live sports in a big way.
Streaming will be a major topic at the conference, as it is in everyday conversations across the industry. Partnerships and bundles are starting to gain traction, with two recent examples being the Warner Bros. Discovery with Disney+ and Hulu as well as a sports package that includes Fox, ESPN and WBD’s Turner. These ventures are important, but industry watchers and Wall Streeters are waiting for a bigger milestone to point the way to a more profitable tomorrow.
Paramount Global has loudly telegraphed its interest in forming a broadcast partnership. The company’s current leadership has described “significant” interest in the entry, with reports pointing to WBD’s Max and NBCUniversal’s Peacock as potential jump partners. Ellison has talked about improving the technology group at Paramount in order to grow Paramount+ but also said that joint ventures or partnerships would be considered, especially outside the US
Dade Hayes and Dominic Patten contributed to this story