Monaco Gathering Grapples with the Future of Media

Posted by: Jennifer L. Schenker on November 13

The Monaco Media Forum, an annual event organized by Publicis to bring together people from across the advertising, media, and Internet sectors, kicked off Nov. 12 in Monte Carlo with an over-the-top wine-tasting sponsored by Silicon Valley venture firm Accel Partners.

Accel’s Joe Schoendorf, a wine enthusiast who lives in St. Helena in Napa Valley, called it the “American Challenge.” He paid to transport some of the greatest, most sought after, and most expensive California wines, including Harlan, Screaming Eagle, Jonata, Bond Colgin, Chappelet, Peter Michael, Maybach, and Bryant, to Monaco to show how they stack up to the best that France offers.

The wines, which were served by California sommeliers Chris Blanchard, Greg Castells, and Paul Roberts, turned out to be real crowd pleasers. Some cocktail party attendees at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort asked to be put on a select mailing list but were told this would not guarantee them access to some of the rarer American wines, at any price.

Cocktail party attendees included Monaco’s Prince Albert; Bloomberg’s Norm Pearlstine, the former editor-in-chief of the Time magazine group; Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of KaZaa, Skype, and Joost; FON CEO Martin Varsavsky; and Internet doyenne Esther Dyson, who took a break from training to be a cosmonaut in Russia’s Star City to attend the conference.

The evening was capped off with a discussion on the future of media with Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker who recently launched an online news and culture Web site called The Daily Beast. Everyone seemed to agree that they liked the wine and had a good time. If only the same level of concensus could be reached on a business model that will allow good journalism to survive and thrive. The conference is aiming to bring some new ideas to light.