Bad merger coverage
The coverage of the merger has thus far been erratic. As I noted last night, the WSJ let Irving Azoff natter on, unchallenged, that the alliance would allow the companies to get more corporate sponsorships and that this would benefit consumers: “Can you imagine the possibilities that would open up in terms of lowering ticket prices?”
Actually, I can’t imagine that at all. There are already gazillions of corporate sponsorships, and ticket prices are higher than ever. And even if for some reason the new company could get more of them (and there’s no reason it would), what motivation would the company have not just to pocket the increase?
Similarly, poking around on the Times web site, I found this extended blog entry:
[Barry Diller] sought to dispel the notion that the deal would lead to higher ticket prices. ”Ticketmaster does not set prices. Live Nation does not set ticket prices. Artists set the prices,” he said, without mentioning the ticket surcharges Ticketmaster relies on for much of its revenue.
He also didn’t mention that Live Nation is now a massive artist management company.
The blog is uncredited to a writer but is billed as “Edited by Andrew Ross Sorkin.” Sorkin has a lot on his plate right now, what with the national economy collapsing, but this is not up to his usual rigorous approach. Later in the entry, the blind eye he takes to the artist component of the story continues:
Analysts believe the merger could lower some ticket prices because the two companies could present a united front to artists when negotiating business deals surrounding tours.
The analysts are unnamed and unquoted, as of course they would be, because anyone who understood the company couldn’t “believe” anything of the sort, first because it has no motivation to and second because it is now the biggest artist management company in the U.S.
I dug around some and found out that much of the blog post is based on a story by Tim Arango, which is buried on the twelfth page of the business section. In the print version, Arango actually does share with readers the full scope of the new company’s interests:
In the beginning of a conference call on Tuesday, Barry Diller, who is chairman of Ticketmaster and will have the same role in the combined company, dismissed such concerns. “Ticketmaster does not set prices,” he said. “Live Nation does not set ticket prices. Artists set ticket prices.”
But Ticketmaster does play a significant role in setting prices: it owns Front Line Management, the largest artist management firm, and it collects surcharges on tickets. In addition, Live Nation has touring, merchandise and recorded music deals with artists like Madonna and Jay-Z.
Emphasis added. Still, to nitpick, he doesn’t point out the obvious conflict-of-interest issues implicit in this arrangement. That’s because the story falls into the old trap of letting someone like Diller lie and then being forced to backtrack and capture the myriad dimensions of the smokescreen.
In both cases, we can see the company’s first line of attack is going to be the Big Lie approach—repeating, over and over, that it won’t raise prices, it won’t raise prices, it won’t raise prices.
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Previously in Hitsville:
Thoughts on conflicts of interest
Constantly updated: The Ticketmaster-Live-Nation unholy-matrimony news round-up!
Five arguments against the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger
Irving Azoff kicks it old school
The music industry’s Putin
WWBD (What would Bono do?)
Billboard’s analysis of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger
Springsteen and Landau bash Ticketmaster and Live Nation!
P.S. on Ticketmaster: A case study, starring Bruce Springsteen
Why the potential Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger is a very bad idea
Is Ticketmaster trying to muddle the fees issue?
The Azoff-Ticketmaster deal: Bad news for concert-goers—and the music industry
Why you so seldom read about obscene Ticketmaster-style ticketing charges
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Mr. Wyman, An interesting side bar to the merger (which by the way, your coverage of has been exceptional) comes via hitsdailydouble.com
see below–
“HERE COMES A REGULATOR: In a Tuesday posting on businessweek.com, Jon Fine opined that Ticketmaster Entertainment and Live Nation are facing a major hurdle in terms of getting regulatory approval. “President Barack Obama should crank up the thank-you machine, because the proposed merger…is his Administration’s equivalent of finding a pony by the tree on Christmas morning,” Fine wrote. “A nascent Presidency that is caught in the muck—as I write this, at least—of the legislative process as it grunts out something resembling a stimulus package can now go back, if only for a moment, to the clean and lofty ideals of the campaign. And pretty simply. All it would take is for the new Administration’s Justice Dept.—which, by one Beltway insider’s account, is staffing up especially quickly—to kill this deal. If there is a political downside to doing so, neither I nor anyone I talked to can discern it. Here you have not one but two companies that are despised, be it for high ticketing fees or tight control of what was once an exquisitely local business, by a large portion of their key customers. (That group includes a sizable contingent of youngish music fans who likely skew Obama-ward in their politics, to boot.)” (2/11a)
CALLING WONDER WOMAN: And guess who the newly formed company has turned to for help in getting through the regulatory gauntlet. According to the N.Y. Post’s Peter Lauria, it’s none other than former RIAA commander in chief Hilary Rosen. She now runs the Washington office of Live Nation’s outside public relations agency the Brunswick Group. “She knows all the players in Washington and knows how things work,” a source told the reporter. Additionally, LN has hired Public Strategies to do the actual lobbying for the deal, while TME has enlisted former Congressman Mel Levine to do its bidding on Capitol Hill, according to sources. Lauria’s Calls to Rosen and Public Strategies were not returned. (2/11a)
Ms. Rosen is of course fresh off of mouthing for RIAA and their AbFab program of sueing downloaders…Looks like a perfect match… thanks for your always strong work…
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[…] the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger Irving Azoff kicks it old school The music industry’s Putin Bad merger coverage WWBD (What would Bono do?) Billboard’s analysis of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger […]
[…] the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger Irving Azoff kicks it old school The music industry’s Putin Bad merger coverage WWBD (What would Bono do?) Billboard’s analysis of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger […]
[…] the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger Irving Azoff kicks it old school The music industry’s Putin Bad merger coverage WWBD (What would Bono do?) Billboard’s analysis of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger […]