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The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this week titled “This Is Tickets: Promoting Competition and Protecting Consumers in Live Entertainment,” focusing on the current state of Live Nation Entertainment and the lack of competition in the primary and secondary ticketing markets.
“I just want to dispel the notion that this is not a monopoly and then we can work our way out of it,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, said during a hearing Tuesday.
Live Nation Entertainment Formed by event promoter and venue operator Live Nation and ticket sales giant Ticketmaster.The two companies merged in 2010 and now control estimates 70% of the ticketing and live event venue market.
It’s No Secret Taylor Swift Fans Are Angry About This November 2022 when millions flock to Ticketmaster.com Going to grab tickets to see Queen of Heartbreak for the first time since 2018, the website crashed. Long waiting lines and frozen screens sparked an uproar among fans, who accused Ticketmaster of ruining their chance to meet the pop star.
“As a leader, we have an obligation to do better,” Live Nation Entertainment President and Chief Financial Officer Joe Berchtold said at Tuesday’s hearing.
This isn’t the first time consumers have called for Ticketmaster and Live Nation to be broken up. It’s also not the first time the Justice Department has investigated the company for alleged wrongdoing, according to reports.
The merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster was conditional on a consent decree when it was approved in 2010. Among other things, the purpose of the agreement is to prohibit Live Nation from retaliating against venues that use conductors other than Ticketmaster. After investigation, 2019 U.S. Department of Justice The company charged Live Nation Entertainment with antitrust violations, the largest antitrust enforcement action in 20 years. Company settled with the government.
“The DOJ charged six issues in 2019 that led to our decision to extend the consent order with them. We don’t think it’s reasonable to be seen as defending retaliation or threat theories. It’s not our business practice. It goes to Berchtold at Tuesday’s hearing “It goes against our fundamental concern about being in alignment with the artist,” the paper said. The idea that we will always put our interests above theirs. So we’re happy to extend the consent order. He added: “It is absolutely not our policy to pressure, threaten or retaliate against venues by using content as part of ticketing discussions. “
November 2022, New York Times The Justice Department is investigating the company again, the report said.
While Live Nation Entertainment arguably has a monopoly on the industry, monopoly itself is not illegal in the US.when a company holds exclusive possession or control an industry.
“If we make monopolies illegal based on pricing above cost and creating monopoly profits for companies, the worry is that this could stifle risk-taking and entrepreneurial activity.”
Abusing a monopoly position is another matter. It is against the law for a business to establish or maintain a monopoly position through inappropriate conduct that does not allow others to enter the market.
Clyde Lawrence, singer-songwriter for the New York City band Lawrence, testified at Tuesday’s hearing. The band regularly interacts with Live Nation Entertainment. Usually their promoters, venue operators and conductors.
“In a world where promoters and venues are not related to each other, we can trust that promoters will seek to get the best deal from a venue; however, in this case, promoters and venues are part of the same corporate entity, so these orders The item is basically Live Nation negotiating to pay itself,” Lawrence said.
The band told CNBC that if they want to play in a venue of a certain size in a certain city, they sometimes have no choice but to use Live Nation because of the lack of competition in certain areas. Then, if they wanted to use another conductor than Ticketmaster, they’d say that’s not an option.
“Ticketmaster has these exclusive contracts in place, and once you sign that contract, you don’t allow bands to come in and say, ‘We want to sell our tickets on X, Y, Z,'” Jordan Cohen, one of the band’s members, said. Cohen) said. Eight members.
they even have a song The lyrics are “Live Nation is a monopoly”. “Because of Live Nation’s control of the entire industry, we have little leverage in the negotiations,” Lawrence said.
While the company does have some competition, experts say no other company currently has a chance.
“Nobody really has achieved the scale that Live Nation has. The closest thing is Anschutz Entertainment Group, which has their own in-house ticketing platform. But they have issued a statement about the market power of Ticketmaster, which is why they use Ticketmaster Bill Taylor Swift,” said Barton Crockett, managing director and senior equity analyst at Rosenblatt Securities.
This is an industry that many people have paid attention to. They’ve talked about wanting to get into it, but nobody’s really been able to gain enough market share to really be a meaningful player,” he added.
Live Nation declined CNBC’s request for an interview or comment, but Ina issued a statement on its website saying it was against company policy to threaten not to use Ticketmaster’s venues And it won’t retaliate against lost ticket deals.
It’s unclear what’s next for Live Nation Entertainment.
Watch this video to learn more about how the company got to where it is today and where it’s headed tomorrow.
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