Marco.org

Ticketmaster spun off from IAC with lots of debt

(via falconieri)

A newly independent Ticketmaster will likely take on about $750 million in debt and have $450 million in cash as it is spun off from parent IAC/InterActiveCorp, a top IAC executive said on Monday.

That’s a lot of “convenience” charges.

Sean Moriarty, chief executive of Ticketmaster, said on the call that the company saw substantial new opportunities in expanding its international ticket sales services, its ticket resale functions and helping artists market themselves to a growing fan base that no longer listens to the radio.

That’s awfully presumptuous for one of the most disgusting, disgraceful corporations in the music industry. The best thing for music is not for Ticketmaster to expand its market.

Clearly, nobody bothered to ask why their fans don’t listen to the radio anymore. Let me spell it out for them:

1. The RIAA
2. ClearChannel
3. Ticketmaster

The unholy monopoly trifecta of consolidation, price fixing, anticompetitive behavior, anti-consumer lobbying, litigation, technological assault, fan abuse, and refusal to innovate.

These entities have destroyed their own business by their own fatal combination of greed and negligence.