At Sun Valley, Media Moguls Will Obsess on Paid Content

Microsoft boss says papers, TV won't bounce back

(NEWSER) - The ad revenue media companies lost in the downturn won't be coming back when things turn around, Steve Ballmer told an advertising conference yesterday. The Microsoft boss said the industry has been "reset" at a lower level, and media companies are going to have to learn to survive on less revenue as content continues to move online and traditional media fade, the Guardian reports. More»

Co-founder is one of 4 staffers let go

(NEWSER) - Slate co-founder Jack Shafer, who has been with the online magazine since before its official launch in 1996, is being laid off, it was announced yesterday. The media critic is one of four staff members being let go; Timothy Noah , June Thomas , and Juliet Lapidos are the others, reports the Washington Post . (The Washington Post Co. bought Slate in 2004 from Microsoft.) Some reactions:

• "If you weren't reading [Jack, Tim, June, and Juliet's] stuff, you're in luck—it'll be online 'til the Internet dies," writes Slate colleague David Weigel. "If you write, you should study it, because these people think and write circles around most everyone in the job-formerly-known-as-the-Life-of-Kings."

Sun Valley conference a pessimistic affair

(NEWSER) - The Sun Valley summit of media titans last week was a dour affair, with the CEOs lamenting the poor state of the economy—and how little faith they have in the Obama administration to fix it. In on- and off-the-record conversations with the moguls, Peter Lauria of the Daily Beast reports, they expressed “serious concerns about the administration’s motives” and worried that its policies would do long-term damage to the economy. More»

Audience loyalty critical as online competitors gain ground

(NEWSER) - Variety will phase in a paywall starting today, a return to its pre-2006 model and a big gamble that its long history as the Hollywood daily will spur users to open their wallets. The site's traffic has increased since it became free, but it failed to attract a bump in advertising revenue, writes Jon Friedman. "We're not as concerned about traffic as other publications," said president Neil Stiles. "As long as we deliver to core people in the business, that's what our advertisers expect." More»

News is finished, Twitter is pointless, says teenage sage

(NEWSER) - A report on teen views of media written by a 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern has become the talk of Wall Street and Sun Valley, with CEOs and fund managers old enough to be his grandparents jumping on its conclusions. Londoner Matthew Robson claims that his generation has no use for newspapers—they “cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text”—or regular television or radio, either. He calls advertising "extremely annoying and pointless." More»