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Big Media "Sliding Into the Abyss" as Execs Head to Sun Valley, Wolff Says

Posted Jul 07, 2009 09:52am EDT by Aaron Task in Media, Newsmakers
Related: TWX, NWS, DIS, DWA, GE, CBS, IACI
Major media executives are gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho this week for Herb Allen's annual media summit. The lush setting and (typically) fawning media coverage of the event masks the industry's grim reality, says Michael Wolff, founder of Newser.com and Vanity Fair columnist.

"Every big media company is up against a wall in a way they've never been and never imagined they would be," Wolff says. "They are looking at their very survival."

Faced with "technological obsolescence" and "profound changes" in the advertising business, media moguls are not necessarily at fault, Wolff says. But "almost to a man these are people who do not have an answer," says the author and noted media critic. "They all are experiencing the same thing and they all see the abyss and don't know how to keep from sliding into it."

In some regard, all the big media companies are following the path of Time Warner, which Wolff says has been "rethinking [its] business model" for 20 years. "In that process they've never once gotten it right [but] are still going on in this process."

Much of the focus these days is on Time Warner's reported attempts to sell assets, like AOL and its magazine business, but Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes may be a buyer as well.

Variety's Peter Bart suggested DreamWorks Animation movie studio as a target last month, and Wolff says such a deal would make strategic sense.  Time Warner's "ultimate wish list" features  NBC Universal, according to Wolff, although he doubts any major deals will get struck at this week's Allen & Co. confab.

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