CNBC’s new Sun Valley bureau gets to use a video camera instead of Twitter, and is doing some stellar interviews out in the sun, where else. The consensus on the real economy and ad economy from the media titans:

—WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell: No sign of bottom
—NBCU’s Jeff Zucker: Sign of bottom
—BET founder Robert Johnson: Umm, wait and see
—Random media M&A types: lotsa dry powder sitting on sidelines (a favorite phrase of theirs these days, btw)
—Activision Blizzard’s Bobby Kotick: I don’t care, games still rock
—Stereophonics (why not, it is a slow day): Maybe tomorrow

Wait, this is a joke?

Photo: Flickr / Dave Chen

Never mind that exits are now at a six-year low and that venture capitalists themselves continue to struggle to raise money. For the second quarter in a row, confidence among VCs in the Valley is up. The streak follows six consecutive quarters of decline starting in mid-2007, according to an ongoing survey of VCs by the University of San Francisco. The survey has a small sample size—42 venture capitalists—but is widely followed and is considered to be a leading indicator of the sector’s health.

The 5,000 Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) subscribers taking part in the company’s planned online VOD trial this summer will have access to 300 movies and some original programming from Starz Entertainment—if they already subscribe to the premium network. The Comcast On Demand Online trial is the first toe in the water for the largest U.S. cable operator—and the most public effort right now showcasing the TV Everywhere concept championed by Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

»  The ad collapse across all media is here for good, so we’d better get used to it. [Fortune]

»  A guide to understanding Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz’s (pictured) stand for copyright law changes. [Editor and Publisher]

»  NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) is finding that selling ads on its cable outlets is easier than to its broadcast mothership, shifting the negotiations in the advertisers’ favor. [Ad Age]

»  Was Twitter’s feelings hurt in Sun Valley? [LA Times]

»  The Tennessean sadly distributed a pre-printed section of its paper with former quarterback Steve McNair, who was murdered this weekend, on its cover. [Editor and Publisher]

»  Was promoting Ned Hooper to Cisco’s chief strategy officer good for its consumer strategy? [GigaOM]

Social net ad spending is expected to rebound next year, says eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson, expanding her previously released projections released in May that forecast a 3 percent drop to $1.1 billion in ‘09. The earlier figures are entirely unchanged and pinned the blame on MySpace’s struggles, which have only continued since eMarketer’s last look at the social net space.

CoTweet, a startup whose software is behind many high-profile corporate Twitter accounts, has raised $1.1 million in a first round of funding. Investors include Baseline Ventures, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, SV Angel, Maples Investments, and Freestyle Capital. The company’s platform provides multiple tools for corporate Twitter users, including the capacity to manage multiple accounts at once and allow several people to post to a single account.

Photo: Rolling Stone

Final stats are in from the Michael Jackson memorial—and the verdict is that while it was a huge event in terms of web traffic and online video streaming, it was actually eclipsed in many cases by traffic on the day of Jackson’s death (and by the Obama inauguration in terms of actual streams). Some highlights:

—CNN: 10.5 million live streams (second-highest ever—topped only by the Obama inauguration); 781,000 concurrent streams; 15.6 million unique visitors; Quite a bit of “citizen journalism” action as well: there were 646 Michael Jackson-related submissions to iReport, 31 of which CNN used on air or on CNN.com.

—Msnbc.com: 19 million total streams (surpassed the record set during its online coverage of the 2009 inauguration); 510,000 concurrent streams; over 75,000 Michael Jackson-related tweets through its live feed/Tinker integration.

The battle between Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) FiOS is going to the Federal Communications Commission, as the telco says that the MSO is wrongfully blocking it from programming the HD version of Madison Square Garden network, Multichannel News reports. Apart from the intense competition, the suit is driven by a tangle of federal rules that lay out what kinds of programming can and must be sold to cable and satellite operators. Because the MSG HD service is neither—it is delivered “terrestrially”—it falls into a protected gap.

Oodle continues to chip away at Craigslist’s domination of the online classifieds market by partnering with much larger sites like AOL and powering their listings—but with a new Twitter integration, the startup is making the battle about more than just scale—it’s trying to “make classifieds more social,” according to CEO Craig Donato. The company plans to start feeding a stream of listings to its Twitter account, complete with searchable keywords and hashtags; Donato said he expects the stream to average at least 10,000 tweets per day—which the company cleared with Twitter in advance.

European media commissioner Viviane Reding has set out her vision for a “Digital Europe”, with four key points including a plea to resolve the legislative impasse caused by opposition to “three strikes” plans…

—Digital dividend must be quicker: “The United States as a whole switched to digital TV last month. I call therefore on all EU governments: Don’t wait until 2012, the EU-wide deadline for the final digital switch-off, to bring these benefits to you businesses and citizens. Act swiftly now.”

While sources tell paidContent Publicis Groupe still appears to be winning the tug of war for Microsoft’s Razorfish, two WPP Group execs insist the UK ad holding company is still very much in the running. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) did have a set of talks with WPP about buying Razorfish last summer, but sources say that the purpose was to gauge interest, as Microsoft wasn’t ready for a deal. WPP sources conceded that they were not aware if there had been any substantive talks since then.