At Sun Valley, sun might set on moguls

By Robert MacMillan - Analysis

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) - As reporters waited for the media industry's hotshots to arrive at their annual Sun Valley summer camp on Tuesday, the big question was "When is Rupert coming?"

Such a question is borne out of years of habit. Sun Valley has given media chieftains such as News Corp's Rupert Murdoch a place to relax and at the same time pull off deals that alter the way people consume news and entertainment.

But this week's gathering raises the idea that the giants who built today's media conglomerates might soon be swept aside by rising Internet stars, such as the fresh-faced founders of social networks Twitter and Facebook.

Murdoch and his peers like Viacom Inc's Sumner Redstone still control vast swaths of global communications, affecting how people think and live. The long foreseen, but sudden onslaught of the Internet on media consumption habits, however, has led some media experts to say this will change.

"I don't think you're going to have those anymore," former Viacom Chief Executive Tom Freston said, referring to the media moguls who built their companies through the 1970s and '80s. "Bigness isn't that great an asset anymore."

The market in recent years has not approved of many of the moves of major media conglomerates, whether they be Murdoch's acquisition of The Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, or AOL's disastrous acquisition of Time Warner.

Media kings sometimes become distracted by the desire to constantly enlarge their empire, said Jonathan Knee, a longtime media banker at Evercore and co-author of a book to be published in December called "Curse of the Mogul."

"Most of them started out running very targeted, generally locally focused, highly efficient, highly profitable franchises, and the curse is that they started to enjoy the glamour and the excitement of the industry too much and lost their way," Knee said.