LiveNation and Ticketmaster must be split | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: We love music industry news on the show.

0:01 Speaker 2: This is from Digitalmusicnews dot com, one of my favorite websites for music industry news, and you know we someone even commented me about it recently. You know, you guys, you beat up Live Nation and Ticketmaster quite a bit on the show. Well, they are giants, or they are a giant because it really is all one company.

0:18 Speaker 1: It is a monopoly.

0:19 Speaker 2: They can take it, they can take us throwing shots at them, but there is now they are being threatened with being forced to break up. Dozens of state Attorneys general around the country are now demanding that Live Nation and Ticketmaster that this merger when did they merge?

0:37 Speaker 1: I mean it had to be at least a decade ago.

0:38 Speaker 2: Right, that this merger be undone after all this time, and that they be split up because they are simply too powerful, too much of a monopoly. And I'll tell you a lot of people in the music industry would really applaud that would love to see Live Nation and Ticketmaster finally being separated. But this is the article from Digital Musicnews dot com. Live Nation and Ticketmaster must be separated, say dozen of US state AG's demand in stepped up court filings so this is what's happening a group of state attorneys general.

1:10 Speaker 1: And by the way, it is the plural.

1:12 Speaker 2: And I'm glad they got it right in the article because I hear a lot of people get this wrong. I even hear journalists who should no better get this wrong. The plural of attorney general is not attorney generals. I hear people get that wrong all the time. The plural of attorney general is attorneys general. They're not generals, So it's not attorney generals. They don't serve in the military. They are attorneys and general as in a general attorney, serving the you know, representing the community that for whom they've been elected to represent, whether it be a state attorney general or the United States attorney general, they are attorneys general.

1:55 Speaker 2: That is the plural. I'm very much a stickler for that kind of thing hinge. Every time I hear, you know, some politicians say attorney generals, it's like, no, that's wrong, and you sound dumb. Okay, anyway, Sorry, I'm very judgmental when it comes to that. On Thursday, May twenty first, the coalition of over thirty state attorneys general that sued a Live Nation and Ticketmaster in a trial that found the Live Events Gianing to be in violation of antitrust law, has demanded that Live Nations sell ticket Master.

2:27 Speaker 2: The States laid out their proposal in a much anticipated legal brief, asserting that the only way to fix the live music business is to force the companies to split it.

2:38 Speaker 1: Says here okay.

2:40 Speaker 2: The States wrote in their filing quote in order requiring Live Nation to divest Ticketmaster such that is capable of restoring competition for primary ticketing contracts with major concert venues. Plaintiffs are evaluating the scope of assets, contras VX, personnel, and systems that would be necessary for a standalone ticketmaster to effectively compete in the market for primary ticketing services to major concert venues unquote. The States are also requesting that Live Nation be forced to divest a sufficient number of amphitheaters and face restrictions on acquiring new ones.

3:21 Speaker 2: Further, they demand monetary damages for a quote overcharges on ticketing fees paid by residents of the plaintiff states unquote, as well as the handover of quote ill gotten profits derived from ticketing fees during the time of the unlawful monopoly unquote. Live Nation for their part, will be filing formal motions and opposition in the coming weeks. The company is likely to argue that the case can be resolved simply by changes to its business practices which were previously agreed upon with the Department of Justice, such as limiting its use of exclusive contracts.

3:56 Speaker 2: Dozens of states and the DOJ sued Live Nation in twenty twenty four are alleging that the company, which which acquired Ticketmaster in an approved merger in twenty ten. Okay, so even longer than I thought. I said, what ten years ago? They actually merged back in twenty ten, So sixteen years ago. That this had grown into a monopoly that has dominated the live music industry for years, to put it mildly, But just a week after the case went to trial, the DOJ agreed to a sweetheart deal, blind siding the court.

4:28 Speaker 2: However, the States seemed the deal insufficient and not in the public interest, and pushed ahead with the trial, asserting that the breakup of the two companies was the best path forward. On April fifteen, the jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster had operated a monopoly dominating the market for ticketing services and the use of amphitheaters and illegally trying to use i'm sorry, illegally tying the use of its venues to its promotion services. So and again we've talked about that on the show.

5:00 Speaker 2: That's the end of that article, but we've talked about that last part on the show. You know, when you when you try to induce someone into doing a particular type of business with you, or maybe they're already doing that business with you, but you're trying to get them to shut up and stop complaining about it. You might say, well, you know, if you cease to do business with us in this modality, we might also stop doing business with you in this other thing.

5:25 Speaker 1: You know. So if you're a company that maybe you own.

5:27 Speaker 2: Multiple venues and you want to sever your your relationship with Tickemaster in terms of servicing a particular venue, well they might say, okay, well, then we're also going to service our relationship with you with these other venues that you definitely definitely need us for.

5:47 Speaker 1: Is that illegal?

5:48 Speaker 2: Is that predatory a predatory business practice? Or is that just playing hardball? Is that just being tough?

5:54 Speaker 1: Now?

5:55 Speaker 2: I don't know where the line is. We've talked about that on the show before. But these state attorneys general, they seem to have an idea of where the line is, and they're now aggressively once again going after Live Nation and Ticketmaster. I don't know if these dozens of US filings, US state filings, I don't know if these are going to amount to anything in the end.

6:17 Speaker 1: I don't know.

6:18 Speaker 2: It's not the federal government this time going after them in this instance, although the federal government does go after Live Nation for other things. This is I mean, the DOJ has suited Live Nation more than once. This is individual state ags going after Ticketmaster and Live Nation and saying they must be separated they are too powerful of a monopoly.