PREVIEW OF THE MUSIC & MONEY SYMPOSIUM.

Venture Capital trends, publishing valuations and profit opportunities in the mobile and tech spaces will dominate discussion at the fifth annual Music & Money Symposium. The event, in association with law firm Loeb & Loeb, will be held March 2 at the St. Regis Hotel in New York.

Headlining this year's confab are Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Doug Morris, who will be featured in an afternoon Q&A session with Billboard executive editor/associate publisher Tamara Conniff, and CKX chairman Robert Sillerman, who will kick off the day with the morning keynote. (CKX owns a controlling share of Elvis Presley Enterprises and 19 Entertainment, the firm responsible for the "American Idol" and "So You Think You Can Dance" TV shows.)

Also on tap is John Frankenheimer, co-chairman of Loeb & Loeb, who will head up an afternoon analysis of the latest venture capital trends affecting the music business. Speakers will include Erik Brooks, partner at ABRY Partners.

In another session, Nicholas Firth, chairman/CEO of BMG Music Publishing; Joel A. Katz, chairman of Greenberg Traurig's Global Entertainment Practice; Mark Levinsohn, managing partner of Epstein Levinsohn Bodine Hurwitz & Weinstein; and Duncan Reid, commercial director of Ingenious, will break down the state of the publishing business.

On the digital entertainment front, Greg Clayman, VP of wireless strategy and operations for MTV Networks; CTIA wireless Internet development executive Mark Desautels; Simon Wilkinson, senior VP/GM of content and hosted services for Openwave; Shahid Khan, partner at Interactive Broadband Consulting Group; and Ted Casey, head of mobile music at Verizon Wireless, are set to explore opportunities in the mobile space.

In the morning, Cherry Lane Digital managing director Jim Griffin, BitTorrent co-founder/COO Ashwin Navin and the Orchard CEO Greg Scholl will be among the featured participants in a "view from the top" session on the latest trends in digital music.

In the final session of the day, Music Analytics president John Rudolph, Pali Research Media analyst Rich Greenfield, entertainment industry economist Harold Vogel and FTI senior managing director Jerry Gold will break down the deal-making prospects for labels, publishers and digital companies in the year ahead.

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By Brian Garrity