New Era Dawns in Sun Valley as Mogul Fest Is Open to Media

News alert: Hollywood’s latest press junket is being held this week in Sun Valley, Idaho, of all places.

Oprah Winfrey and Candice Bergen, who are making their debuts in this year’s big-boy media production, will be on hand, along with an all-star cast that includes Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, John Malone, Bill Gates, Andy Grove, Sumner Redstone, Paul Allen and Warren Buffett.

What a photo op! The combined multibillion-dollar net worth of this ensemble makes the $20-million-a-picture salaries of stars such as Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Jim Carrey seem like popcorn.

For the first time in his 17 years as the enigmatic director of the annual Sun Valley conference, investment banker Herbert Allen Jr. is allowing reporters to photograph and interview his high-powered guests on the premises of the Sun Valley Lodge.

In the past, guests have worried that even a whisper to the media about the event would get them deep-sixed from the festivities the following year.

Herbert Allen Jr., one of Wall Street’s and the media industry’s most powerful investment bankers, uses the conference to showcase his clients’ talents and generate new business, inviting the best and the brightest from the top ranks of the media, technology and entertainment businesses.

The guests are encouraged to bring their families along for some fun--with 130 children on board this year to take part in the wagon rides, raft trips and ice skating parties. The 300 adults have company presentations, panel discussions and a host of extracurricular activities to choose from.

While deal-making isn’t the primary focus of this mogul fest, most years it seems that at least one major transaction is hatched there. Last year, Diller was off in a corner with NBC chief Bob Wright trying to figure out a way to merge his USA Networks with the network. (They couldn’t figure it out.)

The biggest deal ever cooked there was Walt Disney Co.’s $19-billion acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC.

But since Vanity Fair was first invited in 1994 to shoot a group photo of selected guests for its “New Establishment” issue--now an annual mainstay--Sun Valley has evolved into a media circus. The onetime clubbiness and mystique has all but faded away, according to a number of regulars.

“In the old days, when there were 100 guests and 50 fund managers, it was a lot more intimate,” said one.

While the entourage of reporters has grown, with CNBC, USA Today and the New York Times represented last year, the number of “scoops” has not. One highlight in a 1995 Wall Street Journal article noted that then-Warner Music chief Michael Fuchs was making the rounds with skating star Katarina Witt “getting some ribbing from his distressed orange jeans.”

In a USA Today report last week, Allen denied his past policy of secrecy.

“That was always a myth,” he told the newspaper.

It must be that those sources were lying to reporters all these years and just pretending to be skittish about talking.

Allen is breaking another barrier this year, allowing the New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta to sit in on corporate presentations and panel discussions when all other reporters are barred from the door and relegated to a room for interviews afterward.

Allen’s justification is that Auletta isn’t attending as a reporter but as an author of a forthcoming book on Microsoft Corp.

NBC’s Tom Brokaw and ABC’s Diane Sawyer--both of whom are regulars at the conference and often moderate panels--are also invited because they are close personal pals of Allen.

Some of Allen’s star guests will not be there this year because of scheduling conflicts. Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin will be a no-show. Music mogul David Geffen will be in Europe attending producer Joel Silver’s wedding. News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch canceled at the last minute. (Could he be honeymooning after his marriage last month to Wendi Deng, a 32-year-old former Star TV executive?) Murdoch’s two sons, News Corp.’s Lachlan and James, will be on hand.

Among those joining Winfrey and Bergen as newcomers are a parade of Internet and high-tech entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc.; Jay Walker and Rick Braddock of Priceline.com Inc.; Bob Davis of Lycos Inc.; Bill Gross of Idealab; and Tim Koogle and Jerry Yang of Yahoo Inc.

In recent years, the conference--and media deal-making--has become increasingly technology-oriented--and Allen & Co. has sought a piece of the action.

Last year, in particular, the Internet took center stage, with entertainment executives such as Diller leaving Sun Valley salivating about the billions being made in this brave new world.

One of this year’s two panel discussions is “The Internet and Our Lives,” featuring Yang, Bezos, Michael Dell of Dell Computer Corp. and Walker.

The other is “Unparalleled Prosperity and a Troubled Society”--dealing with such topical issues as violence during the biggest boom economy in history.

Social issues have become part of the yearly agenda. Last year, which saw more women executives invited than ever before, featured a panel on race and another on women in business, with such speakers as the Washington Post’s Katharine Graham and cable guru Geraldine Laybourne.

“There is a tradition of these kinds of questions being asked there,” said Laybourne, who is on the “Troubled Society” panel. Laybourne said she risked sounding schoolmarmish but sees her position of power as a vehicle for “making a difference” in the world. Through her new company, Oxygen Media, Laybourne hopes to empower women just as she motivated kids in her former role as president of Viacom Corp.’s Nickelodeon.

Oxygen, whose partners also include Winfrey and producer Marcy Carsey, is launching a new cable channel for women next February that will work in tandem with sites on the World Wide Web. One of its programs, hosted by Winfrey, aims to help women become computer literate.