Our assumption is this: our invitation to the annual gathering of media moguls happening in Sun Valley this week was lost in our overstuffed email inbox. Probably in there along with our still missing invite to the recent Sanchez-Bezos nuptials in Venice. Maybe that spam filter in Outlook is working a bit too hard sorting out the emails offering us countless “work-from-home” opportunities to become “rich and famous.”

Can we just say how much we miss Robin Leach in times like these?

Like the proverbial “Swallows to Capistrano,” the current crop of actual “rich and famous” types are making their annual pilgrimage to Idaho to attend the Allen & Company retreat where deals get done, or these days the deals not being held hostage by some part of the administration in Washington, DC.

Even if we can’t be there, the fine folks at Deadline.com have some solid reporting on those in attendance. Plus, CNBC is there and covering the event like it is their version of the NFL Draft. Some reporting that Shari Redstone is not in attendance, as she is dealing with both her thyroid cancer diagnosis and any signs that the $16 Million deposit to a certain presidential library fund is going to move her merger deal for Paramount Global with Skydance off Chairman Brendan Carr’s desk at the FCC more expeditiously than say, the Epstein client list moved off the Attorney General’s desk over at the Department of Justice.

Fortunately, CBS Mornings anchor Gayle King is on the guest list at Sun Valley. Maybe she can include Shari on her texts with Oprah so they all can keep up with who is saying what there on the mountain.

But Sun Valley’s reputation as the place where “deals get done” (according to WarnerBrosDiscovery chief David Zaslav) may take a bit of a hit this year. Even if Disney and Hearst conveniently dropped the notion this morning that they might be willing to unload their “shotgun marriage” assets in A&E Global Media. Notably, there was no indication that such a deal to dissolve that union might include that longstanding 20% of Disney’s ESPN that Hearst has been getting a nice check from since 1990. (It’s probably worth a little more than the $175 million that Hearst paid RJR Nabisco for it some 35 years ago.)

One deal that probably won’t get any discussion over the fine dining in the mess hall at Sun Valley is the just-announced small station “swapalooza” between Atlanta-based Gray Media and Cincinnati-based Scripps. While we speculated here weeks ago about the potential dam in station trading finally bursting, this deal feels more like a small leak to test whether or not the aforementioned FCC is ready to clear the decks to approve the avalanche of duopoly-creating deals that are just waiting to get done.

Wall Street seems to believe that linear cable networks are going to get shoved off the balance sheets at Comcast and Warner Brothers Discovery faster than those water taxis probably left the docks on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, after last call was announced at the “modest” Sanchez-Bezos reception, back on June 27th.

If those “SpinCos” aren’t fully up and running by Lauren and Jeff’s one year anniversary, then some presents are definitely getting returned.

One fewer television station owner in the designated market areas of Lansing, Michigan (DMA 113); Colorado Springs, Colorado (DMA 86), and Twin Falls, Idaho (DMA 189), will probably not find much of an unfriendly audience inside the FCC’s offices on L Street in the nation’s capital. Any concerns from those nagging public interest groups about there being one fewer TV newsroom in each market will be swept away by the usual promises that there will be bigger news staffs in the single newsroom that will be serving multiple stations after the approval of these trades. Certainly it will be framed as needed to “protect the economic viability of all the stations involved.”

Or some other well written language from the lawyers and public relations teams involved.

Meanwhile, back in Sun Valley, we are hearing that a hot topic on the agenda is this thing that the Secretary of Education refers to as “A-1.” No, wait-that’s what we put on our well done steak at the Waffle House. The moguls are hearing all about “AI” and undoubtedly how they will be able to use that to control the world. Or at very least, help trim those pesky debt loads by having ChatGPT (or whatever other “chatbot” that comes along) replace some of those benefit-needing employees on the payroll.

Fortunately, all those private jet pilots that steered in the couple of hundred aircraft that landed at Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey, Idaho with the invited guests for the Sun Valley shindig onboard, probably have more job security for the immediate future, given that the just enacted “One Big Beautiful Bill” from Congress has restored the 100% bonus depreciation for private jets.

Well, that’s probably why we didn’t get invited! Our financial planner hasn’t been able to make the numbers quite work for that Cirrus Vision Jet that we have had our eye on.

Maybe next year.