Live blogging today, this transpired:

[Rep.] Sherman hones in on [Live Nation’s] Rapino on ticketing fees, finally, making him explain where the fees go. “So when I think I’m paying Azoff [metonymy for Ticketmaster’s service charges], I’m paying you?” he asks. “You’re also paying the venue and the artist,” Rapino replies.

It has long been an irritant to me that most people writing about Ticketmaster don’t say where the fees go. Now there’s no excuse. The head of LN and TM have testified before Congress saying that Ticketmaster service fees are kicked back to the venues and artists.

Two issues. One, I should have made clear I was talking about the mainstream press and the music magazines; industry operations like Billboard of course take it as a given.

Secondly, another interesting aspect of this is which artists get the money. Readers know Hitsville never tires of citing a 15-year-old Billboard story in which Aerosmith manager Jack Douglas tells about going to Ticketmaster to lower fees for the band’s tour …

“[Ticketmaster Chief Ned Rosen] said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Let’s raise the service charge a dollar, and I’ll split it with you.’…I’m going to sell, literally, 2 million tickets through the Ticketmaster system this year….Here he was at this meeting, trying to fuck fans out of another dollar!”

… which tells you that not every artist is lining up at that trough. Last week, for example, I said that it was hard to believe Bruce Springsteen wasn’t getting part of the $43 in fees accompanying the purchase of a pair of tickets to his upcoming tour. My understanding now is that that was a cheap shot, and that Springsteen doesn’t participate in Ticketmaster kickbacks.

That, in turn brings up the issue of where that money goes. If Springsteen had demanded a cut, would it have jacked the fees up even further? Or is he, in effect, just letting Ticketmaster or a promoter like Live Nation just pocket what could have been his cut?

Like so much of the money involved in this sleazy ongoing story, the amounts involved are mind-boggling.  Springsteen has about fifty dates scheduled right now. Say the average venue is 20,000.

In other words, Ticketmaster, the venues and his promoters will be skimming some $20 million in ticket fees alone off the back of his tour.