Blumenthal Calls for Break-Up of “Live Nation-Ticketmaster Monopoly”
[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), delivered an opening statement at a bicameral public forum examining the Live Nation – Ticketmaster monopoly and a controversial Department of Justice (DOJ) sweetheart deal that undermines antitrust enforcement.
The forum, titled, “Corruption Takes Center Stage: How the Live Nation – Ticketmaster Settlement Threatens Antitrust Enforcement,” featured testimony from a recording artist, a legal expert, a concert promoter, a music venue owner, and a state official who continued pursuing accountability after rejecting the DOJ’s proposed settlement.
“We are here today at the beginning of the concert season. A lot of people are looking forward to going to see their favorite artists and bringing their family. And having affordable access and it will be denied to them because of Ticketmaster – Live Nation, and tactics that it has repeated over the years again and again and again,” Blumenthal said at the forum.
Blumenthal continued, “I met this morning with a venue owner, the Webster Theater in Hartford, and he described to me some of the bullying, heavy-handed tactics that Ticketmaster and Live Nation have used to pressure artists to leave his venue and go to others owned by Live Nation in Connecticut. Where Live Nation doesn’t own the venues, it often controls them through long-term contracts, and it pressures the artists to go with them, saying they won’t be able to appear, their tickets will not be sold. This kind of bullying use of market dominance is classic violation of antitrust laws. And Ticketmaster – Live Nation has been able to get away with it because of lack of enforcement against them.”
“They do it because they can,” Blumenthal said. “And they can because they control 80 percent… of all the ticket sales in the country. Very few industries have that kind of concentration.”
“But it’s also about corruption,” he continued. “The Department of Justice won this case. A jury said, in effect to Ticketmaster-Live Nation, you are guilty. Not criminally, but in effect, you did it. You’re liable. You’re responsible. And then the Department of Justice threw in the towel. They entered a sweetheart deal with Ticketmaster Live Nation, a meager, trivial amount of money to be paid… and a few minor conditions including the divestment of some of their control over venues. Nada. Nothing really effective to help consumers. Why? They did it because of fixers and lobbyists who actually had worked in the Administration and were able to bring influence to bear on the Department of Justice to skew law enforcement.”
“So, where we are right now is a clear path. Number one, break up the company… And then a price cap on secondary market prices… There ought to be some fairness here. So that consumers are not, in effect, exploited by the scalpers and the secondary markets. And third, the Junk Fee Prevention Act, which I advocated, that basically says if you offer a price, that ought to be the price that consumers, fans, concertgoers have to pay, not a price that has all kinds of hidden fees and charges, that can increase them literally by 25 percent.”
As Ranking Member of PSI, Blumenthal led a years-long investigation into Ticketmaster’s control of the ticketing market. As part of that investigation, Blumenthal released a Minority staff report earlier this year detailing how Ticketmaster uses its enormous market power to influence venues and artists and supercharge prices for fans.
