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Posted in industry | music on August 23, 2007
"Ticketmaster & Live Nation Head for Divorce"
On Thursday, it was widely reported that Ticketmaster is ready to end its relationship with Live Nation after protracted contract negotiations broke down. The demise of the union between the country's biggest ticket retailer and the biggest concert promoter will inevitably shake-up the U.S. ticket sales industry.PreviouslyAccording to a report by the Wall Street Journal, an internal memo released by Ticketmaster said the company did not expect to renew its contract with Live Nation. "We are now conducting our business with the clear understanding that our partnership with Live Nation is more than likely coming to an end," Chief Executive Officer Sean Moriarty and Chairman Tom McInerney said in a Wednesday e-mail.
The clear loser in this case is Ticketmaster, which depends on Live Nation for roughly 20% of its sales. In 2006, the online ticket store raked in $1.1 billion, about $200 million of which was generated by Live Nation tickets. In turn, it's a major hit for Ticketmaster's parent company, IAC/InterActiveCorp, which relies on Ticketmaster for 19% of its sales. [Forbes]
* Live Nation vs. Ticketmaster (on cutting prices)
* Live Nation buying majority stake in MusicToday
Posted on August 23, 2007 1:51 PM
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Comments (17)
How much will Ticketmaster have to jack up Service Charges to make up that 200 million?
Posted by Anonymous | August 23, 2007 2:13 PM
I was just thinking that! "Hmmm, how will ticketmaster recoup that lost revenue?"
Looking forward to the new 'let me help you with that' charge.
Posted by Anonymous | August 23, 2007 2:25 PM
So, apparently Ticketmaster would rather lose $200 mil instead of cutting Live Nation a break?
Anyways, Live Nation is prob big enough to conduct ticket sales w/o Ticketmaster. While I loathe both companies, it's nice to see Ticketmaster on the losing end of this one.
Posted by Lars | August 23, 2007 2:29 PM
Either way, I have a feeling that the ticket buying public is going to get severely screwed.
Posted by Robert | August 23, 2007 2:31 PM
oh, so that's where my ass oil went....
Posted by pico | August 23, 2007 2:33 PM
Wow, that sucks.
Posted by Drugs Delaney | August 23, 2007 2:35 PM
The thing that I wonder is that a lot Live Nation shows are booked at VENUES that have exclusive deals with Ticketmaster. Obviously, in venues owned by Live Nation, they can cut off ticketmaster. But I wonder how many shows Live Nation books in venues they don't own? Like Madison Square Garden, Meadowlands, etc.
Posted by Anonymous | August 23, 2007 2:41 PM
For ticket sex you must have safety fucntions lockedin!
Talking about cocnerts?
BRAINFREEZE. my girlfriend.
Posted by Taco Time for Mom & Dad | August 23, 2007 2:47 PM
The thing that kills me about ticketmaster is that they charge you more money to use their online service than to use it by phone. Buying by phone costs them way more money because they have to pay a human being to answer the phone. Buying online only costs them bandwidth, which is in essence almost nothing. They charge us a convenience charge? How about me deducting a convenience fee since it was easier for them too.
Also, while I am venting, I hate Live Nation's websites. Try going to a venue website, and looking for tickets only at that venue. Once you are in the livenation system you end up seeing every concert at every live nation venue instead of just the one venue you were looking at.
Posted by Kurt C. | August 23, 2007 3:34 PM
DEATH TO TICKETMASTER AND THE GOBLINS WHO RUN IT!!!
Posted by spiderdude | August 23, 2007 3:41 PM
Maybe some competition between ticket sales services will lead to improvements in service and decreases in cost to the customer. Probably not, but you never know.
Posted by BK | August 23, 2007 3:51 PM
Good point 2:41. I don't think they will lose all of Live Nation's business, just at Live Nation venues. Looks like they will both be competing for all the independent venues. Ticketmaster doesn't book shows, so when venues need to re:up their contract they could be switching to Live Nation's ticket system whenever that is launched.
Posted by dave | August 23, 2007 3:53 PM
oh crud. you know what happens when two evils separate? they spread their disease to others.
Posted by Anonymous | August 23, 2007 3:53 PM
Ticketmaster and Live Nation aren't actually competing over concert buyers so they don't need to compete on price. Since each venue typically has an exclusive deal with a ticketing service they would actually be competing over the venues. How much better would things be for the ticket buyer if we had 5 choices of ticketing services to use?
Posted by dave | August 23, 2007 3:58 PM
wonders what Live Nation ticketing system will be and how much they will charge (bet its at least as much as ticketmaster) and will it be able to handle mass volume? As much as I hate ticketmaster they at least seem to handle large volume of people much better than others.
Posted by Anonymous | August 23, 2007 5:26 PM
it's all posturing even if live nation's own ticketing (nextickets) takes off, at some point they'll get back to sucking each other off and do a big corporate merger. my bet is that when that happens the party line will be that it will be "in the best interest of the fans"
Posted by jerry koffman | August 23, 2007 9:31 PM
their present deal runs through 2008 so they still have time to work out a new deal.
not sure that a merger would work since then they'd be counting on the other promoters to sell their tickets through "live nation's ticketmaster."
Posted by Anonymous | August 24, 2007 3:25 AM