Taking a break from flogging the latest tired media business model, Morgan Stanley published a short report on Friday entitled, “How Teenagers Consumer Media” by 15-year-old summer intern Matthew Robson that offers a frank discussion of what young digital media consumers are up to.  The FT has highlighted it on its front page, perhaps as an antidote to wall-to-wall coverage of the annual Sun Valley media moguls conference in recent days.

The most memorable moment in the report is its discussion of the irrelevancy of Twitter to teenagers:
Facebook is popular as one can interact with friends on a wide scale.

On the other hand, teenagers do not use twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they release that they are not going to update it (mostly because texting twitter uses up credit, and they would rather text friends with that credit). In addition, they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their ‘tweets’ are pointless.

Many of the issues higlighted in the 4-page report are obvious: Teenagers are consuming more media, but not prepared to pay for it. They resent intrusive advertising, while print media and radio are largely irrelevant to them. These observations may be nothing new to anyone who bothers to ask kids what they are up to. As with previous generations, the answers aren’t always what adults hope they are doing. But they have sobering implications for complacent media investors.

On newspapers:

No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper, as most do not have the time and cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the news summarised on the internet or on TV. The only newspapers that are read are tabloids and freesheets (Metro, London Lite…) mainly because of cost…

On radio:

Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio. They may occasionally tune in, but they do not try to listen to a program specifically… With online sites streaming music for free they do not bother, as services such as last.fm do this advert free, and users can choose the songs they want instead of listening to what the radio presenter/DJ chooses.

On (yellow pages) directories:

Teenagers never use real directories (hard copy catalogues such as yellow pages). This is because real directories contain listings for builders and florists… (and) because… they can get the information for free on the internet, simply by typing it into Google

 On digital devices:

What is Hot?
•Anything with a touch screen is desirable.
•Mobile phones with large capacities for music.
•Portable devices that can connect to the internet (iPhones)
•Really big tellies

What Is Not?
•Anything with wires
•Phones with black and white screens
•Clunky ‘brick’ phones
•Devices with less than ten-hour battery life

Elsewhere in the Twitter media echo chamber, The New York Times highlights “Web Site Story,” a video by CollegeHumor.com that dramatizes what might happen if the classic 1950s musical West Side Story had taken place in the era of Facebook and Twitter.

Reuters has an analysis of what Twitter cannot teach the media business.

(Credits: Morgan Stanley Research; Photo: Reuters/Eric Thayer)

Allen & Co might have thought they were being helpful to executives by shutting out the working press from the usual mingling with the executives at the Sun Valley Lodge bar. Its annual media and technology conference includes the reminder to its attendees that they’re not supposed to talk to the reporters who fly out, uninvited but not unwelcome, to try to get the big guys to talk

Maybe it wasn’t so helpful. At least four CEOs told MediaFile and other reporters privately here that they were less than impressed with the decision. Executives who wanted to speak with individual reporters or hold court with several at a time had to do it outside the bar. And that’s just what many of them did, opting to hang with each other and various journalists in the lobby outside the bar, leaving the wonderful staff of the lodge’s bar to ferry drinks out to the crowd.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt held his annual sit down with reporters on Thursday by the fireplace in the lobby of the Sun Valley Inn, and a bunch of other top movers in the media world from Hearst Magazines chief Cathleen Black to News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch and Time Warner Inc CEO Jeff Bewkes seemed to think little ill of jawing with the press during cocktail hour.

The hired security at the event said Allen & Co made the decision on Tuesday after someone complained. The decision reversed years of tradition here where the press and executives mingle in the evenings to have off-the-record chats and trade gossip.

On Saturday, the last day with just one (MediaFile) reporter left, the security seemed to relax a little. The head of security told this reporter, “I’m letting you get away with murder because you’re the last guy here.”

Let’s see if we can apply that policy to the bar next year. Everyone can use a little social lubricant, especially executives and the reporters who make their living off covering what they do.

Has Google stopped offering staff bottled water as it cuts back on costs during the recession? It’s not clear even after journalists spent time with CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Larry Page at the Sun Valley conference this week.

Page and Schmidt couldn’t seem to agree on whether bottled water is still available for free at Google’s Mountain View, California campus, which is renown for its generous buffet-style lunches free for all employees.

Schmidt was telling reporters how the company has worked to get itself “right-sized” to perform well financially regardless of the ongoing economic downturn. One of those cuts was water he claimed.

Page, ever the tech geek, backed this comment with data. “We did a long analysis and discovered that reducing bottled water didn’t cause people to drink less water and more soda.” So they got rid of the bottled water.

Schmidt at first agreed, then seemed uncertain: “I’m sure I’ve seen bottled water somewhere.”

Any Googlers’ care to share on the bottled water situation out there?

Media moguls and executives at Sun Valley spend a lot of time talking about how to best prepare for the challenges of Web and mobile disruption in the 21st Century.

Companies that once traded and leveraged their huge size and scale of distribution are now considering whether just being bigger might not necessarily be better in the new fragmented media world.

For example, Time Warner Inc is slimming down by spinning off its Time Warner Cable unit and AOL, its Internet division. It may also look to rid itself of its Time Inc publishing unit.

“The notion that there are synergies between content and distribution has been dispelled,” says Tuna Amobi, an equity analyst at Standard & Poor’s. “You’re not going to see a Comcast Corp trying to merge with a Disney anymore.”

Not everyone agrees. Sony Corp remains one of the world’s largest companies with major interests in a global empire that spans music, movies, video games, software, mobile phones and consumer electronics.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer said in an interview with Reuters that it had become more important to be able to integrate and leverage its different units. “We wouldn’t have been able to win the Blu-Ray war if we didn’t have content,” he said.

“You can’t create this in a vacuum any more. You have to have a relationship. You don’t have to own something, but obviously if you own something you have a leg up.

Nearly every powerful media and technology executive you can imagine has swung through the idyllic and affluent ski resort town of Sun Valley this week. Here are a few more snapshots from Reuters photographer Rick Wilking…

Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Inc, arrives at the Sun Valley Inn

Harvey Weinstein, of the Weinstein Co arrives at the Sun Valley Inn

Les Moonves, CEO of CBS Corp arrives

Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star LeBron James talks on a phone outside the Sun Valley Inn

Eric Schmidt CEO of Google, Bill Gates former CEO of Microsoft and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures in Sun Valley

(Photos: Rick Wilking)

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

Spotting which executives are talking to each other is the No.1 spectator sport among the reporters at the Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, where dealmaking is always in the air. And the action on Thursday did not disappoint.

The man pictured on the left, of course, is Google co-founder Larry Page. The backside of the right-hand dome belongs to Twitter CEO Evan Williams. The pair appeared to be deep in discussion in the conference’s private lunch garden on Thursday.

Twitter is the fast-growing microblogging site that was previously rumored to have been in acquisition discussions with Google. Twitter has repeatedly said that it wants to remain independent and that it’s not for sale. Was Williams telling Page the same thing in Sun Valley?

About 30 minutes later, we saw Williams chatting away amiably with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Schmidt, if you remember, famously described Twitter as a poor man’s email.

Williams and Schmidt were joined later by Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs. A few minutes later Jacobs and Willams leave in a golf cart.

So much for the lack of interest in Twitter.

(Reuters photo/Rick Wilking)

Google is moving to steal Microsoft’s lunch with its plan to release a PC operating system that competes with Windows. But when Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates crossed paths in Sun Valley on Thursday, lunchtime was all pleasantries.

As Gates was walking out from one of the morning conference panels for lunch, reporters naturally surrounded him to ask for his thoughts about the new Chrome OS announced by Google this week.

Before Gates had a chance to answer though, Schmidt appeared from behind and joked “it would be better if you don’t make that comment,” provoking laughter all around.

The pair shook hands and walked off together in conversation towards the garden where lunch was being served. Since reporters weren’t allowed in, the rest of the conversation is anyone’s guess.

(Photo: Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates talk outside the Sun Valley Inn on July 9, 2009. REUTERS/Rick Wilking) 

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.

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.