The Super Majority

DOJ Drops the Ball on LiveNation/Ticketmaster Merger

At first blush, it looked like a slam-dunk antitrust case for the government.

Ticketmaster, a company that came to dominate the live-music ticketing business by buying up seven of its rivals, was suddenly facing a challenge to its 83 percent market share. Its largest customer, Live Nation, a big venue manager and concert promoter, had decided to launch its own ticketing subsidiary and quickly grabbed 16 percent of the market. Ticketmaster responded in kind by purchasing Front Line Management, which manages tours for 200 of the country’s top music artists.

By early 2009, Ticketmaster vs. Live Nation was turning into one of those price-reducing, service-improving rivalries that benefit consumers much more than shareholders. So in February, the two companies called a truce and announced they were merging. The Obama administration, eager to demonstrate that the era of no-touch antitrust enforcement was at an end, put the deal on hold, launched a wide-ranging investigation and told company lawyers it was prepared to block the transaction.

Read the full article at Washington Post