Live Nation Is an Illegal Monopoly, Jury Finds ⇥ bbc.com

Alanna Durkin Richer and Larry Neumeister, reporting for the Associated Press last month:

The Justice Department touted a tentative settlement of its antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation Entertainment on Monday as a victory for consumers that would end an illegal monopoly over live events in America, but over two dozen states planned to keep fighting the companies in court.

Noah Shachtman, writing for the New York Times:

It’s hard to overstate how thoroughly Live Nation controls the live music business and how directly that control hurts fans. Let’s say you were one of the thousands of people who went to see Megan Thee Stallion’s most recent show in Charlotte, N.C. Some fees went to Ticketmaster, which Live Nation owns. Some of the purchase price went to the venue, then called the PNC Music Pavilion, which is operated by Live Nation. Some went to the tour’s promoter: Live Nation again. Another slice went to Megan and her team, which includes her managers, who work at a company co-owned by, you guessed it, Live Nation.

Competitors charge high fees, too, but Live Nation is different because of its vertical integration. The company “offers every service in the chain,” Judge Subramanian noted, “save — for now, perhaps — the job of the artists themselves.”

Archie Mitchell and Kali Hays, BBC News:

Live Nation, the entertainment giant which owns Ticketmaster, has been illegally operating as a monopoly and overcharging fans, a federal jury has found.

The verdict followed four days of deliberations in a seven-week trial in New York City that could have a major impact on the music industry.

The concert venue and music festival owner could be forced to divest parts of its business or even split from Ticketmaster, an outcome former Attorney General Merrick Garland called for when he filed the lawsuit in May 2024.

The U.S. Department of Justice debased itself with last month’s settlement, personally requested by the expert dealmaker himself, and this verdict seals how embarrassing it was. It was bananas that governments worldwide permitted the acquisition of Ticketmaster by Live Nation in the first place, let alone all the other parts of the entertainment and event industry controlled by this single company. Break it into little pieces.