A debate over paid content that has riven the newspaper business and spread across the rest of the media sector is expected to frame discussions at the annual confab of media and technology power brokers and entrepreneurs in Sun Valley this week.

For one week a year, the affluent resort town in central Idaho is transformed by Allen & Co, a boutique investment bank, into a playground of billionaires. They stroll along manicured pathways in its tranquil grounds and meditate by the duck ponds over the future of the media business and perhaps the next transformative merger.