Media moguls — well really, tycoons of all kinds — trickled into the Sun Valley Lodge on Tuesday for Allen & Co’s annual pow wow in Sun Valley. Or, in the case of Rupert Murdoch, he drove a white Toyota SR5.

Here are some mugshots:

         
No wonder the swans got scared.

(Photos: Reuters)

Every year a secret guest graces Allen & Co’s Sun Valley conference with his/her presence. Last year, Tony Blair quietly rolled in and lunched with Viacom chief Sumner Redstone, among other activities.

If you can figure out which country this flag belongs to, you’ve got the answer:

Thanks to Reuters photographer Rick Wilking for this one. Sun Valley Lodge staffers unfurled the flag and quickly took it down — likely after being told it was secret. We’re hearing from one guest that this year’s surprise attendee will be His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan.

(Photo: Reuters / Rick Wilking)

They call it the Duck Pond, but it’s actually teaming with (vicious) swans. It’s considered a big media and tech powwow, but a broad swath of global corporate titans of finance and politics round out the guest list.

It’s the 26th annual Allen & Co Sun Valley conference, where high-wattage huddles transpiring on the tranquil resort grounds among stunningly rich business people swathed in questionable leisure wear could end up in big deals months from now. The legend springs from the track record: AOL and Time Warner, Walt Disney and CapCities/ABC, Google and YouTube are all said to have gotten started here.

In between knitting (!), yoga, white-water rafting and golfing, and bridge (!) games execs like Google’s trio Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin mix it up Disney’s Bob Iger, Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes and News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch.

Although the mood this year is decidedly somber as the deteriorating U.S. economy weighs heavily on the minds of moguls, deal chatter persists and will likely center on what AllthingsD’s Kara Swisher likens to the Godfather-like meeting of the five families — the drama over who’s going to link up, buy, merge, strikes with whom playing out between Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Time Warner and News Corp.

In particular, Yahoo’s Jerry Yang and Sue Decker are under the hotlights again after billionaire investor and career agitator Carl Icahn fired another salvo on Monday urging shareholders to join his campaign to wipe clean the board slate and pave a way towards a deal with Microsoft. Microsoft’s backing Icahn, it seems. The software maker is open to pursuing a deal to buy all or part of Yahoo — only if a new board is elected.

The only thing missing from the pitch: price.

Gordon Crawford of Capital Research & Management, which owns 16.3 percent of Yahoo, is also mulling backing Icahn, Swisher reports. Crawford is expected to attend as well.

Meanwhile, Time Warner’s Jeff Bewkes could seal a deal to merge the company’s AOL operations with Yahoo and take a stake in the embattled Web giant in time to appease shareholders at Yahoo’s Aug. 1 annual meeting. Or maybe not so fast.

(Photo: Reuters/Rick Wilking)

There are humble beginnings, and then there are those who get dropped-kicked. An example of the latter is what’s being billed as 2008’s first media sector initial public offering: RHI Entertainment LLC, makers of “Kung Fu Killer” and “Kung Fu Killer II” and other made-for-television movies.

The “Kung Fu” series reimagines David Carradine’s Kwai Chang Caine character as White Crane, “spiritual master of the martial arts who takes on criminals deep in the bowels of Shanghai.

RHI is bestowed the title of first media IPO by edging in front of Al Gore-backed Current Media, the owners of interactive cable channel Current TV, which filed for a $100 million IPO in January, but has yet to indicate when it expects to go public. Meanwhile, losses are mounting up quickly as ad revenue shrinks.

Troubled waters in the media, threats of a possible advertising recession hasn’t stopped RHI.

Perhaps it should have: RHI shares, which priced at $14 per share, below its hoped-for $16 to $18, sunk 5 percent to $13.30 in morning trading on the Nasdaq.

Uhm, let’s hope “Kung Fu Killer III” does even better. Although, one would hope that Hollywood’s given up on the white knight saving the (fill in the non-Caucasian group here) from themselves.

(Photo: RHI.com)

I was on a panel on Wednesday to talk about the future of media sponsored by one of my favorite daily reads, I Want Media. The pleasantries lasted for about 20 minutes. Then we ducked to avoid the impromptu firefight between The New York Times’s David Carr and Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff.

Just a short sample from Wolff: “The New York Times. It’s very likely something really dramatic and potentially terrible and certainly historic is going to happen in a very short period of time. Its business is in substantial trouble.”

At one point, Carr brought an expletive to the table as part of the back-and-forth. It was that kind of fun.

The other thing I learned: Bring a new product to hawk.TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld broke news about launching a new video site, “Elevator Pitches,” where entrepreneurs can submit videos of their company and be rated by viewers. Wolff discussed his biography of News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch and Newser, his site which summarizes news stories from around the Web.

We also discovered that Newsweek is now tapping its summer interns for ideas on how to change the company. It’s either clever or desperate… or both.

New York Times Co Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. managed to deflect major shareholder insurrection this year by agreeing to offer two board seats to a dissident investor’s rival slate, where one presumes they might be somewhat more placid than when they were banging on the walls of the Gray Lady. Now it looks like he might be working the same charm on disaffected puzzlers.

At Tuesday’s annual shareholder meeting, one woman who said she was an investor in the company asked why the Times didn’t run a Sudoku puzzle. Such a move, she explained to Sulzberger as he stood before his audience at the lectern, would no doubt be a big boon for circulation.

Here’s Sulzberger’s response:

I know it’s something we’ve looked at but I cannot answer the question as to why we haven’t done it yet. Our puzzle is one of the great puzzles of the world and it continues to be a huge draw for us. But I will certainly make your thoughts known to the puzzle people.

If nothing else, he’s more than assured us that his puzzle people will never be considered “synergies,” and if they were, they could probably hide out in the Sunday acrostic all day long.

And on an endnote, perhaps if the shareholder checked nytimes.com, she might find all manner of Sudoku.

(Photo: Reuters, ‘Father of Sudoku’ Maki Kaji)

We weren’t expecting huge surprises during Yahoo’s earnings conference call, but CEO Jerry Yang was spectacularly vague about the Internet company’s plans vis-a-vis Microsoft or any other potential tie-ups — with Google, Time Warner’s AOL or News Corp — that Yahoo has been working on.

At the very start of the call, Yang essentially said “Don’t go there” to analysts and investors, reminding them about the purpose of the call.

“I’d like to remind you that today’s call is about our Q1 results, so please direct your questions to the quarter if possible,” Yang said.

When he touched on Microsoft — referring to it as three months of “uncertainty” — it was to reiterate the same line: “Our board and management are committed to choosing a path to maximize shareholder value.”

At the same time, Yang was bent on convincing analysts and investors that, despite an unchanged revenue forecast for the year, Yahoo deserves a higher price than the $43 billion cash-and-stock deal that Microsoft has offered. Is that because Yahoo piggybacked on gains from a stake in China’s Alibaba.com to a higher quarterly profit? Or because Yang said Yahoo’s “strategies and investments are beginning to pay off”?

Not that analysts or investors were convinced. Most continue to believe that Yahoo’s earnings are unlikely to put pressure on Microsoft on raise its bid.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, meanwhile, said before the earnings, “I wish Yahoo all the success with its results, but it doesn’t affect the value of Yahoo to Microsoft.”

So where does that leave Yahoo now? Wednesday might offer some clues, when Yahoo’s two-week test on outsourcing search advertising to Google ends. Or it may not. Yahoo chairman Sue Decker already swatted hopes on the call, saying it’s “premature” to speculate on what sort of deal the two might strike.

Photo: Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang (Reuters)

If CBS tosses its news operation and channels that of CNN, would you care? That conundrum brings to mind a tough question for the media industry as a whole: content may be king, but does brand matter, especially with news?

The New York Times says executives from CBS and Time Warner have discussed reducing CBS’s news-gathering capacity while keeping its top personalities, such as Katie Couric, and paying a fee to buy CNN’s news feeds. Or CBS might keep its correspondents in certain regions but pair them with CNN crews. Anchors like Anderson Cooper already appear on both networks.

Variety says insiders at the two companies “downplayed” the report.

Sure broadcasting legends like Fred Friendly and William Paley may be turning in their graves, but in a world of declining viewership for network news and increased popularity of news consumed on the Web or mobile devices with aggregators like Drudge and Google News, one wonders if this is a smart cost-cutting move for CBS. CBS news is mired in last place amid the continuing struggles of Couric, who was given a $15 million a year contract, to attract new viewers, the Times said.

UPDATE: CBS News officially denies there are ongoing negotiations with CNN.   CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius:  “We’re extremely satisfied with and proud of our news gathering operation. No outside arrangements are being negotiated.” 

(New York Times)

Keep an eye on:

• Entrepreneur Media is up for sale — the first round of bids are over and it hopes to get around $200 million. (PaidContent)
• Facebook is close to settling a lawsuit brought by three former Harvard students who say the original idea for the social networking site was theirs. (NY Times)
• Hollywood studios urge the Screen Actors Guild to embrace the framework of the earlier deals reached with the directors and screenwriters unions. (Reuters)
• An online advertising network owned by News Corp, Fox Networks, has bought a majority stake in European video ad network Utarget as part of a move to expand in Europe and Asia. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

The wireless industry’s clout attracted former U.S. presidents last year, but this year it was just enough to lure the former wannabes.

This year’s headline keynote speakers at the CTIA annual industry showcase were former presidential candidates John Edwards and Fred Thompson? Last year the wireless show nabbed Former actual Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as keynote speakers.

After lamenting lost chances and nodding to the increasing importance of technology in campaigns, both politicians then got busy criticizing how the mainstream media has handled the presidential campaign so far.

Edwards spent a good deal of his keynote discussing how voters, despite wall to wall coverage of the campaign, seemed largely ignorant of  the remaining hopefuls’ John McCain (R), Barack Obama (D) and Hillary Clinton (D) differing approaches to issues such as global warming, national security or health care.

“What you’d expect is a more informed electorate,” said Edwards in answer a question about the impact of 24-hour media  coverage of the campaigns.
“Unfortunately that’s not the case,” he said during the questions session after his keynote.

“There is so much focus on the superficial. The American people deserve better. You deserve to be better informed than that,” said Edwards before refusing to reveal who he would vote for and saying that he would not consider a nomination for vice-president.

Thompson was equally contemptuous of the mainstream media campaign coverage. 
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a writer or a television personality with dead airtime he’s got to fill up,” said the former actor.

“Controversy is the name of the game and sometimes it’s generated when it’s not really there,” he said of coverage of the campaign so far.  “We’re seeing it in these campaigns, the good side and the bad side of these new ways to communicate,” said Thompson.

In his speech he referred  to the double-edged sword of blogs and services like Twitter, which lets users send updates to a large group of people.

However, neither seemed to blame the media for their failure to win nominations for the top job. Thompson blamed his failure on his taking advice that he should “be himself.”  Edwards said, “If some of you voted for me it wasn’t enough of you.”

(Photo: Sinead Carew / John Edwards (top); Fred Thompson (bottom)

Former Yahoo Finance General Manager Nathan Richardson is expected to be appointed Chief Executive of ContentNext Media Inc, owner of popular digital media blog paidContent, according to a source familiar with the matter.Richardson’s last stint in the media sector was as a senior vice president and general manager of Dow Jones Online, which included oversight of The Wall Street Journal Online, MarketWatch and Barron’s.Most recently he headed up the International Rescue Committee in Liberia for about a year before returning back to media for a slightly less hectic lifestyle.Richardson takes over the CEO spot from co-founder Rafat Ali, who will remain as editor and publisher. ContentNext’s flagship paidContent, founded in 2002, has quickly established itself as a must-read among executives in the media and digital media sector.