Billionaires Head to Sun Valley to Discover the Next Megadeal
- Cable companies under pressure for exclusive content: Zaslav
- Murdochs, Buffett, Bezos, Zuckerberg among event’s invitees
Media Moguls Weigh Washington, M&A in Sun Valley
At least one media mogul is expecting to see a lot more deals like AT&T Inc.’s $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner Inc., and the seeds for such megamergers could be planted this week in a resort town in Idaho.
Pay-TV providers and phone companies like AT&T are realizing they need exclusive programming to set themselves apart in a crowded media landscape, said Discovery Communications Inc. Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav, one of the first bigwigs to arrive at the annual conference in Sun Valley, hosted by Allen & Co. He cited the Time Warner deal and Verizon Communications Inc.’s purchase of Yahoo! Inc.’s internet business as examples, along with Discovery’s own deals to provide sports programming to European TV providers.