Musicians Lobbying For Approval Of Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger Forget To Mention Massive Conflict Of Interest

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Fri, Mar 13th 2009 12:42pm — Mike Masnick

You may have heard, recently, that some top name musicians went to Congress in support of the proposed Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger that has many people in the industry worried. Eddie Van Halen, Seal, Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins and the four members of the band Journey wrote letters to Congress favoring the deal. But, none of them mentioned a rather important fact, that Bruce Houghton is pointing out: every one of those musicians is managed or co-managed by Irving Azoff, who just so conveniently happens to be CEO of.... Ticketmaster. Doesn't that seem like a bit of a conflict of interest? Or, at the very least, something worth admitting to prior to pushing for the deal to be approved?

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Filed Under: billy corgan, conflict of interest, eddie van halen, irving azoff, merger, seal
Companies: live nation, ticketmaster

7 Comments

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Weird Harold, 13 Mar 2009 @ 12:57pm

This is actually one of the funniest stories around. Live Nation was suppose to be the cure for everything in the music business. It was suppose to be complete re-write of the business model that would capitalize on all the new media and the like to give artists a complete song to concert to mechandise to back catalog. Instead, they are doing what all good middle men do, they are expanding the middle.

All business models have middle men. Watch them go.
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The Great And Powerful Wizard, 13 Mar 2009 @ 12:58pm

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
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Dave, 13 Mar 2009 @ 2:02pm

You Nailed It
Wow, talk about brazen. It shows that blindly trusting those at the very top of the food chain is always a mistake.

In practice, what Live Nation does is to use their clout and economic power to eliminate local promoters.
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Colin, 13 Mar 2009 @ 2:20pm

Indeed
"In practice, what and Live Nation does is to use their clout and economic power to eliminate local promoters."
Not to mention both of them use their clout to effectively control all the major venues and set ticket prices at those venues to whatever they want.
A side effect of all this(intentional I expect)is to eliminate places indie acts can play at prices they deem reasonable.
We were looking into using Ticketmaster a few years ago for a Festival I am involved with. My investigations told me RUN, don't walk, as far away as possible.
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What???, 13 Mar 2009 @ 3:06pm

Why are we even having a conversation about letting argueably the biggest monopoly in america merger with another Company?!>! C'mon these guys make MS look like a mom & pop organization. 25+% fees, exclusive contracts... The only hearings that congress should be having with these guys are hearings on breaking up the monopoly.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2009 @ 3:24pm

What a bunch of stooges! Ticketmaster is GREAT if you love paying a lot more money to go see a concert. How could an industry that does nothing but bitch and moan about how they are being mistreated and how they aren't getting all the money deserve even consider increasing the size of the middleman?

Is Ticketmaster even needed today? Hell....was Ticketmaster EVER needed?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2009 @ 6:26pm

I am a LYV stock holder who bought after the merger was announced and I hope it does not go through. Ticketmaster is doing some bad stuff which they are getting sued for.
Ticketbastard sucks.
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