Ticketmast-whore

Another blow to the average guy who just wants to take in a concert or other event. Ticketmaster can now double the profit as they charge their rediculous service fees on tickets and then charge again on the same tickets when they are resold by online "scalpers". I don't forsee any good for the average guy coming from this move.

Ticketmaster Buys Major ResellerThe Wall Street Journal, 2008-01-15In a bid
to fend off competition on multiple fronts, IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ticketmaster
has agreed to pay about $265 million for TicketsNow Inc., the country's
second-largest Web site for reselling tickets to concerts and sports events, the
companies said.The move is designed to let Ticketmaster and its clients tap the
explosive growth of the so-called secondary ticket market, which is led by eBay
Inc.'s StubHub site. The cash offer also comes after Ticketmaster's largest
client, concert promoter Live Nation Inc., said it plans to stop doing business
with Ticketmaster at the end of this year and to start a competing ticketing
service.While Ticketmaster sells the vast majority of the tickets resold by
online marketplaces such as StubHub, TicketsNow and Razorgator, the ticketing
company and its client venues generally see little or no income from those
secondary sales.Ticketmaster President and Chief Executive Sean Moriarty said
the company plans to share revenue from its new division with clients that own
venues or promote events, although he said details on how the money would be
distributed aren't final. He said the move highlights a shift in the way ticket
resellers are perceived, both by the public and by concert-industry
participants. Where resellers once were viewed as shady scalpers, now, thanks
largely to the Internet, they are becoming more respectable."Clients who five
years ago were not willing to allow a ticket to be resold now want a piece of
it," Mr. Moriarty said. The size of the secondary ticket market is hard to
judge, but estimates range from $2.5 billion to $5 billion a year in the U.S.Tim
Leiweke, president of Anschutz Co.'s AEG unit, the No. 2 concert promoter in the
country in revenue after Live Nation, said he welcomed the deal as a way for
venues and performers to participate in a market they previously couldn't
access. "We get to go back to the artist and say, 'Now, we can capture that
revenue for you, instead of StubHub,'" Mr. Leiweke said. "That's a big deal for
us."A secondary-market effort by Ticketmaster called TicketExchange has gained
only modest acceptance among consumers. "It's a good system but not a great
brand," Mr. Leiweke said. The TicketsNow acquisition stands to put Ticketmaster
into the secondary market in a significant way. TicketsNow is primarily used by
professional ticket brokers to sell tickets to customers; the Web site charges
buyers 15% of the sale prices, and it charges variable fees to sellers depending
on their sales volume and other factors.The acquisition raises potentially
thorny questions for Ticketmaster, which has previously sued brokers who use
automated programs called "bots" to scoop up tickets faster than regular fans
can, and then resell them for big profits on sites such as TicketsNow.
TicketsNow Chief Executive Cheryl Rosner said her site currently doesn't make
any effort to keep tabs on how its 800 registered sellers acquire the tickets
they sell. Mr. Moriarty said Ticketmaster would attempt to root out people who
used technology unfairly, although he declined to give specifics. TicketsNow
sold $202 million of tickets in 2006, Ms. Rosner said.