The doj alleging the Live EntertainmentConglomerate Monopolized markets and boxed out rival companies. There you see at the Department Of Justice, the podium is set up. These companies, the Department Of Justice is alleging, unfairly have resulted in higher prices for consumers. 30 state and District Attorney generals are joining in the lawsuit. Dominic chu, good morning. What exactly the basics . What does livenation doo, how do they they make their money and what is the government accusing them of . This is a suit highly anticipated for quite some time now and hit a fevered pitch, got a lot more traction a couple of years ago when livenation took a lot of the heat for the botched handling of ticket sales for taylor swifts concert tour at the time. That whole ordeal of dropped sales, long lines and reportedly outrageous prices eventually led to even a congressional hearing on what exactly happened. Now, today, the Justice Department made it official, earlier just this past half hour or so, the doj filed that suit in federal court, in the Southern District of new york, it alleges that live nation and its ticket selling subsidiary ticketmaster, quote, unlawfully exercises its Monopoly Power in violation of section 2 of the sherman act. It goes on to say that because of that, music fans in america are denied access to ticketing innovation and it leads to paying more for tickets than elsewhere in the world. The Justice Department also tries to make the case in its complaint saying that live nation itself controls over 265 event venues in north america, which includes 60 of the top 100 amphitheater style locations in the u. S. Itself. Now, some estimations are a 70 market share in ticket sales in the u. S. Live nation, i will point out, responded to the suit formally, issuing a statement calling the allegations, quote, absurd. Also saying that, quote, the dojs complaint attempts to portray live nation and ticketmaster as the cause of Fan Frustration with the Live Entertainment industry. It blames Concert Promoters and Ticketing Companies, neither of which control Ticket Prices for those high prices. It ignores everything that is actually responsible for higher Ticket Prices, from increasing Production Costs to Artist Popularity to 24 7 Online Ticket scalping that reveals the publics willingness to pay far more than primary tickets cost. All of this in aggregate is what is driving a lot of this particular suit, but, again, this is a very high profile one because of things like the Taylor Swift Eras Tour and the popularity of concerts. You and i have already seen stories of just how much the get in price for that taylor swift concert costs here in the u. S. , which led Many American concertgoers to fly to places like stockholm and paris where Ticket Prices are less. There is a lot of Anecdotal Evidence at play right now. What ticketmaster has to do is show many of the arguments dont hold water, thats where the tough part of this legal case is going to come, jose. That taylor swift thing was such a disaster on so many levels. So, dom, the u. S. Government approved the sale of ticketmaster to live nation in 2010. Do you think theyll be able to successfully to break the two up . This is an interesting point. This is a suit that has broader bipartisan support if you want to call it that and consumer support as well, especially because of the taylor swift issue you just mentioned. What remains to be seen is just how much of a legal basis there is for breaking this company up. So, on the one hand the whole idea of the sherman antitrust act was to make sure that companies did not get so large that they cornered their respective markets and gave consumers no choice but to use their products. There are right now competing ticket sales platforms, no doubt about it. But ticketmaster is by far the dominant force and the dominant name in the market. But a lot of live nations argument will be about just how much Ticket Prices like i point out are a function of their role and their charges and their service fees in that process. As i mentioned, live nation is calling attention to all the other factors that cause spikes in Ticket Prices that are not in their control, including just supply and demand, jose. And, dom, as we await the Attorney General just about a minute from now, just real quickly, live nation is a multilateral, it is a global company, right . It has its offices and its influence throughout the world. Yes, it does. There is no doubt about it and a good amount of their business comes from outside the u. S. As well. The reason why this is going to become the curious case is because the administration, the ftc, the doj, the folks who regulate this kind of Market Monopoly Type Control Situation will look at just how incentivized these companies are to act in the way that they do. What is curious about the ticketmaster live nation Situation Jose is that maybe not surprisingly, remember, live nation and ticketmaster, Selling Tickets is just one portion of their business. By far the biggest generator of revenues for live nation is actually putting on the concerts at their venues. They drive a lot of revenue because of that. But what is interesting about the live nation Business Model is that that is a low Margin Business for them, putting on these concerts. They dont make a lot of money doing it. Where they do make a disproportionate amount of their profits is by this ticket sale process, the Service Charges they charge for Selling Tickets. It is one of those things that both sides, the Live Nation Ticketmaster side as well as the Merrick Garlandled doj has to make a case for if whether or not that is incentivizing some people to maybe become bad actors or allegedly abuse their market power to the detriment of consumers. Were talking about how big of a market share and what kind of money does live nation have . So, this is it is curious, from a profitability standpoint, over the course of the last year, there have been ups and downs with regard to the business. And because of those rising Production Costs as live nation points out, the profitability is not far and away huge, but what it does do it call attention to which part of the business is the big Driving Force behind live nations overall profitability. Dom, thank you very much. Attorney general Merrick Garland. Good morning. Earlier today the Department Of Justice joined by 29 states and the district of columbia, sued Live Nation Entertainment and its wholly owned subsidiary ticketmaster for violating the sherman antitrust act. In recent years, live nation, ticketmasters exorbitant fees and technological failures have been criticized by fans and artists alike. But we are not here today because Live Nation Ticketmasters conduct is inconvenient or frustrating. We are here because as we allege that conduct is anticompetitive, and illegal. Our complaint makes clear what happens when a monopolist dedicates its resources to entrenching its Monopoly Power and insulating itself from competition, rather than investing in better products and services. We allege that live nation has illegally monopolized markets across the industry in the United States for far too long. It is time to break it up. Live nation ticketmaster has made itself ubiquitous in the Live Entertainment industry. It controls at least 80 of Primary Ticketing at major Concert Venues, and it directly manages more than 400 artists and controls more than 60 of Concert Promotions across the country. And it owns or controls more than 60 of large amphitheaters in the United States. We allege that to sustain this dominance, live nation relies on unlawful anticompetitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live Events Industry in the United States, and over the fans, artists, independent promoters and venues that power the industry. The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices for ticketing services. As detailed in our complaint, Live Nation Ticketmaster locks out competition and ticketing through the use of longterm exclusive Ticketing Contracts with venues that can last over a decade. As well as by acquiring venues themselves. With exclusive disagreements that cover more than 70 of Concert Ticket Sales at major Concert Venues across the country, ticketmaster can impose a seemingly endless list of fees on fans, those include ticketing fees, service fees, convenience fees, platinum fees, price master fees, per order fees, handling fees, and Payment Processing fees among others. For fans in the United States, this illegal conduct means higher prices. In other countries, where venues are not bound by ticketmasters exclusive Ticketing Contracts, venues often use multiple Ticketing Companies for the same event, and fans see lower fees and more innovative ticketing products as a result. We also allege that Live Nation Ticketmaster uses these longterm Ticketing Agreements with venues and its control over those venues to unlawfully pressure artists into agreeing to use its promotion services. In fact, live nation often sacrifices profits it could earn as a venue owner by letting its venue sit empty, rather than opening them to artists who do not use live nation promotion services. Even during peak concert season. Live nation has not only deployed anticompetitive tactics to Court Artisan Venues to using its services and charge fans excessive fees, it has also worked strategically and illegally to eliminate the threat of potential rivals from emerging from across any of its businesses. As detailed in our complaint, live nation suffocates its competition, using a variety of tactics, from acquisitions of smaller regional promoters and venues to threats and retaliation to agreements with rivals designed to neutralize them, this has included acquiring or coopting key independent promoters. Even when the economics of a particular deal did not make sense for live nations promotions business. For example, as recounted in our complaint, live nation acquired a controlling stake in ac entertainment, an independent promoter in tennessee. Live nations chief Strategy Officer assured executives that even though, quote, the numbers are not super exciting, and this feels like more of a defensive move, the acquisition helped, quote, grow our moat in the nashville market. When faced with another potential competitor to its promotions business, live nation took action to ensure that the competitor would not threaten its dominance in the live music industry. Live nation initially categorized that competitor, the venue operator oak view group, as one of its, quote, biggest competitor threats. Over time, however, oak view and live nation morphed from competitors into partners. As detailed in our complaint, live nation executives repeatedly scolded oak view for trying to compete. In one instance, in 2016, live nations ceo warned oak view that competition would only lead to artists demanding more compensation. The live nation ceo emailed oak view writing, quote, lets make sure we dont let them now Start Playing us off, referring to a prominent artist agency. Oak view backed down. In a similar instance in 2022, live nations ceo scolded oak views ceo, quote, who would be so stupid to do this and play into the artist agents arms, closed quote. Oak view again backed down, quote, we have never promoted without you, wont, said its ceo. And later, added, quote, i never want to be competitors, closed quote. We also allege that live nation has repeatedly wielded its powers to keep its rivals from expanding in the u. S. Concert Promotions Market through threats and retaliation. In 2021, live nation threatened to retaliate against private Equity Firm Silver Lake unless one of the latters Portfolio Companies stopped competing with live nation for Artist Promotion Contracts in the United States. Live nations ceo told silver lake that he, quote, failed to understand why silver lake, quote, continued to invest in a business that competes with live nation, closed quote. The threats ultimately succeeded, and silver lake has tried to sell tag all together. We allege that live nation does not maintain its dominance in the Live Entertainment industry by staying ahead of its competition on the merits. It does so by unlawfully eliminating its competition. We allege that live nation controls the Live Entertainment industry in the United States because it is breaking the law. I am grateful to the Justice Departments antitrust division for their excellent work on this case. The Live Entertainment industry is complex and well sourced. Taking on this case has required persistence and diligence by the Antitrust Lawyers who are behind me today and by their team. I am proud to work with them. People always remember the first time that they were transformed by live music. I still remember as a senior in College Going to a bonnie raitt concert and seeing a then up and coming musician named Bruce Springsteen play as a warmup act. We all know that we had just seen the future of rock n roll. The Justice Department filed this lawsuit on behalf of fans, who should be able to go to concerts without a Monopoly Standing in their way. We have followed this lawsuit on behalf of artists who should be able to plan their tours around their fans and not be dictated by an unlawful monopolist. We have filed this lawsuit on behalf of the independent promoters and venues, which should be able to compete on a level playing field. And we have filed this lawsuit on behalf of the American People. It is time for fans and artists to stop paying the price for live nations monopoly. It is time to restore competition and innovation in the entertainment industry. It is time to break up Live Nation Ticketmaster. The American People are ready for it. Thank you. And now ill turn this over to the Deputy Attorney general. And Attorney GeneralMerrick Garland there with a very detailed announcement on the Justice Departments intention to break up Live Nation Ticketmaster. I want to bring in dominic chu. Dom, what is next . What is the next phase or stage . So the next phase or stage right now is going to involve the administration and the doj specifically and Merrick Garlands team trying to make the case here that everything that they have laid out in that statement and in the complaint is actually true. Now, i laid out before the crux of the case ahead of Attorney General garlands comments here to make it more definitively clear with regard to what exactly theyre saying is the monopolistic or anticonsumer behavior in all of that. Attorney general garland went through almost bullet point by bullet point some of the allegat