Billionaires Camp: Iger, Zaslav, Sarandos, Others Expected at Sun Valley This Week; What Deals Could Be Discussed?
Billionaires Camp: Iger, Zaslav, Sarandos, Others Expected at Sun Valley This Week; What Deals Could Be Discussed?
The annual Sun Valley media conference starts on Tuesday, and streaming deals could be at the forefront of the conversation.
“Summer camp for billionaires” is about to begin. That term is frequently used to describe the annual Sun Valley media conference, which takes place each summer at the Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho and is hosted by Allen and Company. The conference welcomes the biggest sports and media executives in the business, and this year’s invite list features names like Disney chairman Bob Iger, Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, Apple head Tim Cook, Netflix co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos, and many others. Analysts believe that streaming will be high on the agenda for all concerned, as the industry faces a reckoning and must decide the best ways to consolidate moving forward.
Key Details:
- Talk of the Paramount merger with Skydance will likely dominate conversations at Sun Valley this year.
- Past conferences have seen major updates and deal rumors generated by attending executives.
- This year’s meeting could serve as a chance for WBD to finalize its NBA plans, or for new players to lobby for inclusion in the Venu Sports platform.
This year’s Sun Valley conference will kick off in the shadow of a big deal, giving attendees plenty to discuss as they wait in line for the buffet. On Monday, Paramount and Skydance Media announced they had officially entered the process of merging their two companies in a deal that’s currently set to close in early 2025.
That will no doubt kick off more conversations about the state of the entertainment world, and the futures of both streaming and linear TV. On the streaming side, discussion is likely to center on bundles, as well as future opportunities for mergers as companies try to determine the best way to make streaming profitable for them.
“Hands down, the one really important topic here is how do these companies make the streaming of TV globally work for everyone,” said Neil Begley, an analyst at Moody’s Investors Services told CNBC ahead of the conference. “It’s either going to be the more aggressive use of bundling services or forming joint ventures, or mergers.”
What Are the Top Streaming Deals That Could Be Talked About at Sun Valley?
The meeting of minds at Sun Valley has definitely generated some headlines in the past. Last year, the conference gave us the first inkling that Disney was ready to potentially move on from some of its linear assets, including ABC. It also saw Disney’s CEO Iger reveal that he’d had conversations with strategic partners about offering a streaming version of ESPN, which could have been the first public rumblings of what became the Venu Sports streaming joint venture with WBD and Fox.
At the 2021 conference, then Discovery CEO David Zaslav hinted that a partnership with NBCUniversal could be on the table when the oncoming merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia had completed. Three years later, Warner and Discovery are fully merged, and talk of a potential deal between the two sides has never completely died since. A merger of Peacock and Max would create a formidable new streaming service, one with a wide range of library content, prestige TV, and sports rights to offer consumers.
Now that Paramount has determined what its new ownership setup will look like, perhaps it’s time for the company to approach Disney, Fox, and WBD executives about joining Venu Sports. If CBS were to come to the streamer, it would unite the entire Sunday afternoon NFL schedule on the platform. A streamer with all Sunday and Monday NFL games would be incredibly hard for other sports networks not to join if they didn’t want to risk being left out in the cold.
Speaking of the NFL, the conference could be a good place for the league to feel out partners about offering smaller NFL Sunday Ticket packages on YouTube TV. CBS and Fox have steadfastly opposed the league offering easier access to out-of-market games, but the recent outcome of an antitrust case against Sunday Ticket may force the league’s hand to try and seek a settlement as it eyes the appeals process. The league had previously discussed offering single-team packages via ESPN foras little as $70 per month, but nothing came of those talks.
Staying in the sports arena, Sun Valley could give WBD the chance to finally decide what it wants to do with the NBA. The league appears ready to finalize 11-year deals with ESPN, NBC, and Prime Video, but WBD is still mulling the possibility of trying to exercise its matching rights to keep one of those packages for itself. Perhaps a meeting between WBD execs and officials from these other outlets could lead to a fourth parcel of games being carved out for TNT?
The meetup could also serve as a chance for smaller streaming services to woo potential buyers. Lionsgate is in the process of separating its cable and streaming assets from its movie studio, and may try to drum up interest for STARZ at the conference. Similarly, AMC could look to find a buyer among bigger streamers for AMC+ and its attendant intellectual property.
Smaller streaming services will likely be absorbed by the giants in the industry over the next few years, and a future of bundled and merged streaming platforms has never been more clear. The Sun Valley conference starts on Tuesday, and before the week is out there could be some major storylines generated by its attendees.
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