The Economist decides that entertainment is a difficult business, and that key to success to to strike the appropriate balance between creative and business impulses - duh:

ONE by one, the men of extravagant vision and exaggerated showmanship have been toppled from the upper ranks of the world's media giants. The departure of Steve Case from AOL Time Warner and of Tommy Mottola from Sony Music are only the latest in a lengthening line-up that includes Bertelsmann's Thomas Middelhoff, AOL Time Warner's Jerry Levin and Bob Pittman, Vivendi's Jean-Marie Messier, Canal Plus's Pierre Lescure and EMI's Ken Berry. Into their places has stepped a parade of dull men in suits, such as Andrew Lack, new head of Sony Music, who has never worked in the record industry, Jean-Rene Fourtou, an ex-pharmaceuticals boss, at Vivendi or, at Bertelsmann, Gunter Thielen, ex-head of the group's printing and industrial operations.

This trooping of grey faces into the unruly media world marks a distinct change of mood. Talk of "vision", "synergy" or "new paradigms" is out; the daily grind of evaluating and improving operating performance is paramount. Gone are the days when moguls such as Mr Messier posed jauntily for Paris Match, a French celebrity magazine, while skating in Central Park. Except for the two wise old birds of media - News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch and Viacom's Sumner Redstone - today's rising media stars, such as Tony Ball at BSkyB, Britain's leading pay-TV operator, or Jeff Bewkes, co-deputy head of AOL Time Warner, go largely unrecognised on the streets and unquoted in the press.

The need to return to the basics of the business was summed up recently by Peter Chernin, Mr Murdoch's right-hand man at News Corp. "What the hell were we thinking?" he asked. "Where did [the industry] get our grandiose ideas the media business was on the way to complete and utter re-invention?" His point was that during the boom, the industry was distracted by gadgets, mergers and convergence theories; now it is time to relearn old lessons about fostering creativity and manufacturing entertainment that people are willing to pay for.

....Entertainment bosses therefore need certain qualities: a readiness to take big risks, laser-quick reactions to fickle changes of taste, and a supreme confidence in their own gut instincts - all virtues, as Michael Wolf puts it in his book "The Entertainment Economy", that reinforce the mogul model of leadership. But the best moguls trust their managers to take decisions too. "Show business doesn't attract leaders who know how to listen properly or leave people alone," comments Roger Fransecky, head of the Apogee Group, which advises many media bosses. "But when you manage creative people, you must intrude carefully."

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