Germans love to see the mighty fall just a little bit more than the rest of the world, and freshly ousted Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking is a perfect candidate. Yes, he made tiny, almost bankrupt Porsche successful again but did he have to be so smug about it? And was he really worth the millions of euros he raked in every year in a country where executive pay is a thorny issue? His salary, which made him the best paid German manager by far, was a topic of endless fascination in the German media. Wiedeking never divulged how much he made but unapologetically said he deserved what he earned — estimated to have been 80 million euros last year. Even before his dismissal was official, speculation swirled about how extraordinary his severance payment would be, with some putting the figure at 250 million euros. In the end it was less but still a handsome sum of 50 million euros, considering he leaves Porsche with a huge mountain of debt. As Wiedeking climbs off the throne, he is eager to burnish his blue collar credentials and in Robin Hood style announced he would donate what’s left of his payment after taxes to charity. Some of it will go to a foundation for Porsche staff, some into projects to create new jobs and, in a final swipe at his critics, he promised to give to a charity for “elderly and suffering journalists”. Take that, hacks.

Reporters who cover the annual Allen & Co media conference know that the bar at the Sun Valley Lodge is a great spot to sit with uber-execs from Rupert Murdoch to Google’s Eric Schmidt to get their deep thoughts on the state of media and technology.

That was true this year, at least on Tuesday night, when reporters like me got to sit with Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner shareholder Vivi Nevo, former Viacom CEO Tom Freston, Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin and others.

Someone complained, however, and tonight, reporters are not allowed to go to the bar.

Who killed this longstanding tradition of informal and colloquial relations? The talk among the press was that it was Henry Vigil, Microsoft’s mergers and acquisitions chief, but he denied it.

It’s a pity, really. Reporters are not welcome at this luxe gathering, but many executives like talking to them anyway, and that contact can have benefits for shareholders who read our news articiles and for plain folk who digest the TV shows, movies and other media that these people are paid to develop and distribute.

One good thing for the reporters: we can still order drinks from the bar — they deliver them to us in the lobby.

Reuters reporters Robert MacMillan, Yinka Adegoke and Alexei Oreskovic will be sending live updates from the Sun Valley gathering. Read their updates below or follow us on Twitter.

Further to our earlier post on the hottest looks in executive casual at Sun Valley, here are a few more outfits hot off the runway.

Who gets your vote for America’s next top model?

Mouse over the photos to identify your favorite executive and comment below.

(Photos: REUTERS/Rick Wilking)

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)

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)

Madison Square Garden, the storied New York City sports and entertainment venue owned by the Dolan family’s Cablevision Systems Corp, is getting further into the music business with a deal to take a minority stake in artist management company Front Line, it said on Wednesday.

Front Line’s backers seem to be the who’s who of New York media moguldom with stakeholders like Barry Diller’s IAC Interactive and Edgar Bronfman Jr’s Warner Music Group.

Front Line, led by Irving Azoff, is described as the world’s largest personal music management firm with artist clients including the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Neil Diamond and Christina Aguilera.

Perhaps it was too hard to find a manager for Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan’s band JD & The Straight Shot without buying one.

(Photo: Reuters)

Media titans John Malone and Barry Diller knew they had their fair share of disagreements over the years, but like many couples heading to divorce, they apparently needed someone else to tell them that.

Enter Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Vascellaro.

The media industry read with rapt interest her story in October that put in plain language how much tension had built up between the two over their partnership in IAC/InterActiveCorp. 

But as the two moguls duke it out in Delaware court this week, they keep invoking that story, day after day, as the moment that sent their relationship past the point of no return. 

Diller apparently understood the story as grounds to endorse a control structure for a spin-off of IAC businesses that would dilute the grip of Malone’s Liberty Media over the units. And that is what brought them to court today.
 
“It was kind of a verification in his mind they had gone over a significant line and the possibility of doing a transaction beneficial to both sides was becoming highly unlikely,” IAC Vice Chairman Victor Kaufman said when asked by Liberty’s lawyers.
 
IAC’s lawyers made liberal use of the story as well, asking Liberty CEO Greg Maffei whether he orchestrated the original interviews with himself and a usually press-shy Malone to send a message to Diller. They asked Maffei whether he tried to influence that story by flying the New York-based reporter out to Denver and talking up his views of Diller over several hours of travel time.
 
Maffei rebuffed that idea, saying  he didn’t come up with the idea for the flight, that there were other people on the plane and most of the time they spent playing the card game “Oh, Heck”:
 
[We asked Dow Jones about the flight. Here's their statement: "The Wall Street Journal attempted to reimburse Liberty for the flight, but the company subsequently returned the check. In keeping with our guidelines, we still intend to reimburse Liberty. We stand by the fairness and accuracy of our story."]
 
After it appeared, Malone said he had already guessed Diller’s reaction:
“I thought Barry’s not going to like this when he sees it. (Did you call Diller?) I should have but I did not. Because when I read it, it came across not the way I would have liked it to come across. 
    
In the end I did call. It was roughly two months later. (Apparently Diller told Malone of his one share, one vote plan during that call)”

(Photo: Reuters / Maffei in Sun Valley 2007)

Its a (media) heavyweight battle: IAC’s Barry Diller vs Liberty Media’s John Malone.Not since former Disney chief Michael Eisner and one-time Hollywood super agent Michael Ovitz squared off has the media industry seen as contentious a battle as the one we’re about to witness in Delaware on Monday as Diller and Malone fight in court over control.Long-time business partners are dueling over Diller’s move to break up the company in a plan that would eliminate IAC’s dual class share structure, which gives Malone’s Liberty some 62 percent of the company’s voting power. Under a longstanding agreement, Diller has been able to vote Liberty’s stake. Liberty now says IAC has breached that agreement by going against Liberty’s wishes.PaidContent posted a copy of Diller’s pre-battle message to troops.Eleventh-hour settlement hopes ahead of the trial have largely been dashed. Although there is still about a hour to go before the trial starts. Citing unnamed sources, NY Post says these talks are likely to continue through the week.Let the games begin.(Reuters)Keep an eye on:

• The hair-twirling, the fidgeting, the interjections. BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy learns how not to do an interview with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, when the crowd at South by Southwest Interactive turns on her. (News.com)
• Top six U.S. cable operators aim to spend $150 million to create a jointly owned company to court advertisers on a national scale. (NYTimes)
• Facebook, en Francais. (Reuters)
• MySpace’s talks with music industry heats up, considers launching service without Universal Music Group. (FT)

(Photo: Reuters)