In this case, it’s Madonna’s new pact with Universal Music Group. The New York Post says she’ll get around $1 million an album for a three-album deal, and music industry folks say the paper has its numbers right.

This is a very reasonable contract. Madonna is long past her music-selling peak, and the music industry is a decade past its peak, too.

Still! Reasonable contracts — especially for superstars — are still very new things for the music business. Not too many years ago, Sony handed Bruce Springsteen a reported $100 million, and that was well into the post-Napster slide. So let’s just walk through what each side gets here:

• Madonna gets the kind of money, upfront, that she would have laughed at in the past. A million bucks is what you used to give a hot “baby band” no one but a few hipsters had heard of. But the world’s biggest music company will buy her billboards, etc., and that’s still worth something. Plus, on the off chance that one of these albums does take off, the low advance means she could actually earn royalties on the sales.
• Universal gets bragging rights and one of the music industry’s few living worldwide icons, for what amounts to walking-around money. And, again, who knows? She might still sell some records, perhaps on the back of her upcoming Super Bowl appearance.
• Universal doesn’t get Madonna’s lucrative back catalog — Warner Music Group still has those songs, which it continues to sell, repackage, and sell some more. And Universal doesn’t get a piece of her lucrative touring business — concert giant Live Nation has that. (Remember when Live Nation was also going to be a big deal in the record business? What happened to that?)

But wait a minute. Why does Madonna need a record deal at all? Couldn’t she just sell her music on her own, like Prince and Radiohead and the Eagles and lots of folks?

Sure. But not everyone wants to be Louis C.K., who has just declared his direct-to-fan experiment a huge success. (To play devil’s advocate: Even though everyone who bought one of his concerts blogged about it (more than once, in some cases), he has still only reached 130,000 people — far less than would have seen him had he done an HBO deal or a Netflix deal. And those guys would almost certainly have paid him more, too. Though if you want to be a contra-contrarian, you can note that he could still do that. (Which I have!)

Some people, it turns out, are still happy to take money up front from Big Media companies and hope they can deliver the Big Reach, which the do-it-yourself Web can’t guarantee.

Milyoni, the Bay Area company that was going to handle the payment and streaming of the show via the social network, says that’s not going to happen anymore because of “legal challenges brought by the music labels that own the rights to Michael Jackson’s lyrics.”

I’m not exactly sure what that means, but the most logical translation would be that Mijac, the company that owns the publishing rights to Jackson’s songs, has complained. Then again, since Mijac is owned by Jackson’s estate, and the concert is theoretically being produced with the estate’s blessing, that wouldn’t make any sense.

Then again, since we’re talking about the Michael Jackson estate, subject to much legal wrangling, anything might go. The “Michael Forever” concert itself has been … troubled from the start.

Not sure how much more time to devote to this, though I’m a bit interested in general about what kind of rights a Web site needs to secure to broadcast a live concert. Off the top of my head, I’m assuming that those rights vary considerably from country to country, which could be a problem for a show like this.

In any case, here’s the statement from Milyoni CEO John Corpus. If I hear from him or anyone else who can shed light, I’ll update:

Due to legal challenges brought by the music labels that own the rights to Michael Jackson’s lyrics, we have been notified by concert promoters Global Live Events and Ridgeline Entertainment that the live Facebook broadcast of the Michael Forever tribute concert has been cancelled. As the technology provider behind the live Facebook broadcast, Milyoni will fully refund all customers who prepurchased access to the concert using Facebook Credits or PayPal.

While social media presents a new opportunity for artists and concert promoters to reach global audiences, it is still a new and disruptive frontier ripe with challenges. Milyoni will continue to work closely with our music and entertainment partners to pursue this new channel of distribution, beneficial to both artists and fans worldwide.

UPDATE: I talked to Milyoni’s Corpus, who couldn’t shed much more light about the issues that killed the livestream — that’s between the concert promoters and one or more rightsholders. But he did note that Milyoni and others have in the past been able to stream concerts globally over the Web, so this stuff is doable. Milyoni says it had pre-sold “hundreds” of tickets in the two days its preconcert Web page was up and running.

Visitors to Yahoo Sports and its Rivals.com fan properties will see links to SeatGeek embedded in a team’s schedule page; links will also appear within articles, blogs and on the 130 team-specific college sports pages at Rivals.com. Yahoo has more than 51 million unique visitors a month.

The links simply say “buy tickets”; clicking through brings up a stadium seating diagram, with a list of available seats and prices on the right side of the page.

SeatGeek says it is aggregating roughly 19 million tickets for upward of 60,000 sports events from more than 50 secondary markets, including StubHub, Ticketmaster’s TicketsNow, RazorGator and others.

Russell D’Souza, co-founder of SeatGeek, said the service is free to consumers, and that the company collects an affiliate fee from the seller, which will now be split partially with Yahoo in some cases. Since the average purchase ranges between $250 to $300, SeatGeek’s cut can be between $25 to $30 per transaction, D’Souza said. SeatGeek also has partnerships with The Wall Street Journal and the New York Daily News.

D’Souza said before he and Jack Groetzinger started the company, they used to open six windows in their browsers to compare ticket prices on dozens of sites where tickets were posted for sale by smaller brokers. He said there were often hidden fees, service fees and shipping fees, which made it even more complicated.

“It would be really hard to compare, so we wanted to create an interface for any event that would expose to users where the best seats were in the stadium and how much they’ll be paying,” D’Souza said.

Generally speaking, D’Souza said, the secondary ticket market is great for finding deals on tickets for events that are sold out, but a little-known fact is that it’s also good for events that still have tickets available.

“If an event is sold out, you have to go there — there’s only one option. But if it’s not sold out, you’ll end up finding tickets from season-ticket holders and brokers who will list it below face value,” he said.

By making it easier to sort through the various marketplaces, SeatGeek hopes to make consumers more aware of the alternatives. From its site, the company also offers venue maps and price forecasts to advise users when to buy tickets.

SeatGeek has raised about $2.5 million in venture capital from Founder Collective, NYC Seed and others. Founder Collective, an early-stage investor in New York, previously invested in Get Me In, a European secondary-market ticket vendor that was acquired by Ticketmaster in 2008.

Here’s the latest: “iTunes Festival London 2011,” a free app that will stream live footage from an Apple-branded concert series throughout July.

The app will work on both iPhones and iPads, and includes AirPlay support so you can get the shows up on your plasma, via Apple TV.

This looks like a pretty cool lineup (Coldplay! Bruno Mars! The Arctic Monkeys! And, um, Gwyneth Paltrow!), so it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t want to at least play around with the app on a slow summer day. Concert giant Live Nation handles the actual producing duties for the shows, and will stream them via its app, too.

Wired.com’s John Abell thinks this app could be the precursor to a long-running series of live events streamed by Apple. Who knows? Could be. My hunch is that Apple is putting the app out as a glorified demo and will be happy to let other companies carry the ball forward from here.

BoomTown scrambled the All Things Digital jet (aka, United Airlines, Seat 7A) late last night to get up to Microsoft’s big event for its online advertising clients today.

Called “Imagine 2011: Marketing Leadership Summit” and held at its Redmond, Wa. HQ, the two-day gathering is designed to wow peeps by trotting out a spate of strategery concepts those who buy advertising on Microsoft’s various digital offerings from its Bing search service to MSN to Xbox to Windows Phone 7.

Some program topics: “Elsewhere USA,” “Teens Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out” and “Audience Buying Goes Real-Time: True or False?”

Presumably the goal of all this heavy-duty thinkery is to get these marketers to buy more ads from Microsoft by warning them about being left behind on the platform as the train chugs inevitably off to the digital future.

And just in case that doesn’t work, there will be a free concert tonight featuring the hipster band Train for the Imagine 2011 attendees at Microsoft Co-founder Paul Allen’s Experience Music Project venue to open those ad wallets.

Hey, Geek Mister: Stop sending all those digital marketing bucks to Google and Facebook and give them to us!

Before a panoply of various social, design and anthropology experts pontificated, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the day with his patented loud and lovable Ed McMahon act, complete with the booming catchphrases.

Hey-Yo!

“You have to move forward or die!” (About the Web.)

“If you wanna get big, you have to think big!” (About the Windows 7 Phone smartphone deal with Nokia.)

I love the U.S. government, I don’t want to give it a hard time.” (About its crappy Web site, not the antitrust conviction thing.)

Ballmer outlined some key trends, which are not new to anyone paying attention over the last five years: Location; social; pervasive displays; ubiquitous connectivity; computers everywhere; cloud; data; and natural user interaction

He also joked about how there were 10 fake Steve Ballmers on Facebook, all using Steve Ballmer photos. Imagine that!

You’d think Microsoft’s badillion-dollar investment in the social networking site would get you a verified account!

Status: Monkey boy mad!

Actually, pissed off is more related to the fact that the person who conceived and organized the Imagine 2011 event was former global ad sales head Carolyn Everson.

But, she left the company in mid-February after only six months, for essentially the same job at Microsoft partner Facebook.

Since then Microsoft and Facebook have been wrangling over the talent raid, including Microsoft even considering legal action to block the move.

Nonetheless, the show must go on and it did in a pretty classy way.

But not without another road bump in today’s action–the news that Microsoft’s own marketing head, longtime company veteran Mich Mathews, was leaving the software giant later this year.

The departure had the halls buzzing about what happened and who will be taking over the big job with a $1 billion marketing budget.

Maybe some external CMO sitting right there in the audience or perhaps some internal Microsoft candidate such as Yusuf Mehdi or Capossela?

I suppose it’s time for some strategery stat!

Until it is all figured out, here is the music video for Train’s hit song, “Hey, Soul Sister”:

Microsoft–furious over a recent talent grab of its top advertising exec by Facebook–has been considering a wide range of options, including legal action to block the move, according to sources close to the situation.

Lawyer at both companies have been in back-and-forth talks in recent days after the hiring of Microsoft’s global ad sales head Carolyn Everson by the Silicon Valley social networking powerhouse to be its VP of global sales.

Among the more likely solutions being discussed: Barring Everson–a longtime ad sales exec who came to Microsoft from MTV Networks–from using any strategic information she learned at the company and also from contacting certain ad clients on behalf of Facebook for a certain period of time.

While a legal action to stop her from actually taking the position is the most serious option, it is certainly not without precedent for Microsoft. The company recently got a temporary restraining order to block one of its top government relations execs, Matt Miszewski, from working at Salesforce.com, pointing to non-compete and confidentiality contracts.

Whatever happens, it is clear the Everson hiring has infuriated Microsoft execs, especially CEO Steve Ballmer, since the company regards Facebook as a close partner. Microsoft is also a longtime investor in Facebook.

While considering a temporary restraining order against Everson in this kind of situation–since it is essentially the same job–is standard operating procedure for any company, several sources said tensions are higher than usual.

“This is just tone deaf on Facebook’s part not to think this would not be a problem,” said one person.

One particularly irksome aspect–top Facebook execs did not call Ballmer before news of the appointment leaked out to assuage the situation.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg did release a statement when BoomTown broke news of the move in mid-February, in an attempt to make nice.

“Microsoft was one of our earliest partners and is still one of our most valued,” she said, in part. “We look forward to continuing to expand our relationship with them.”

Her dulcet words have apparently not worked.

In fact, the talent raid came as a surprise to many at Microsoft, especially since Everson (pictured here) had been hired in June after a long search and had become a high-profile presence at internal and external Microsoft events.

That included organizing the splashy “Imagine 2011, Microsoft Advertising’s Marketing Leadership Summit.” The event is set to take place at the end of March at the software giant’s Redmond, Wa. HQ and will include an evening concert by the band Train.

Now she will be doing such things for Facebook, where Everson will be replacing longtime and well-regarded ad exec Mike Murphy, who left the Palo Alto, Calif., company last fall. She will report to former Googler David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

Having a top exec who is amenable to and well known by Madison Avenue is key for Facebook as it ramps up its business, in anticipation of an IPO next year.

Despite being private, Facebook has recently been valued at between $50 and $60 billion by investors, who have been eagerly buying up shares of the company on secondary markets.

Under Murphy and Fischer, ad sales have been doing well already. Facebook’s share of online display advertising has more than quadrupled, from about three percent to almost 14 percent of the nearly $9 billion U.S. market, according to a recent survey.

In growing so quickly, Facebook has grabbed ad revenue–reportedly $2 billion last year–from old online powerhouses, especially Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, and is also in a big fight with Google over premium ad sales.

Facebook’s surging usage and engagement are the reasons for the increased interest from advertisers, as well as its global growth in both market share and mindshare of consumers.

The opportunity at Facebook is clearly a big–and probably irresistible–move for the dynamic Everson, who has mostly worked in the mainstream media for much of her career.

Still, while movement of execs among top tech companies is not uncommon, there has been a lot less from Microsoft to Facebook.

Instead, Facebook has been most aggressive in its efforts to attract talent from Google.

No longer. In fact, the week before Facebook grabbed Everson, it also hired an up-and-coming exec, Chris Daniels, GM of Bing Mobile Product Management, to be its director of business development.

Still, there is some hiring war history between the companies. In late 2008, Microsoft’s Ballmer managed to lure former Yahoo exec Qi Lu to run its Online Services Division, several sources at both companies said, after he had told Facebook he would work there as its engineering lead. Lu had also been heavily recruited by Google.

Eventually, that was water under the bridge, which is what Facebook is hoping will happen with Microsoft over Everson.

Also important in the weighing of options at Microsoft is the obvious importance of keeping up good relations with Facebook. It is an important partnership, especially for its Bing search business, as an advantage over Google.

“Everyone is hoping to resolve this amicably,” said one person close to the situation. “There has been some damage to the relationship for sure, but the question is whether Microsoft wants to do something that would escalate that damage.”

Not surprisingly, both Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment on the fracas.

Yesterday, BoomTown made a brief stop at what felt like an underground bunker in a hotel in San Francisco to see the Doobie Brothers.

Yes, the legendary band of indelible hit songs such as “Black Water” and “China Grove” and misspent youth way, way back in the day.

Except the group, which was founded in San Jose, Calif., in 1970, was performing at a Cisco (CSCO) television studio down south in Silicon Valley to launch its first album in a decade, called “World Gone Crazy.”

Cisco–founded in San Jose too, but in 1984–put on a 90-minute concert by the Doobie Brothers that was broadcast to 11 U.S. cities, helped by AT&T (T) and Marriott (MAR).

It was an odd event, because we were watching a concert on a big screen in what felt like a place more suited for a corporate retreat.

Still, in its ongoing attempt to push its telepresence technology into the consumer space, such a thing has become more typical for Cisco.

That’s why it will be interesting to see what the tech giant will announce at an event it is having on October 6.

The invite reads: “Come see a new Cisco consumer experience at an exclusive media event, hosted by Chairman and CEO John Chambers.”

What could the new consumer product be?

Perhaps Cisco has built its own version of Apple (AAPL) TV. Or perhaps a consumer-aimed home version of telepresence?

Until we all find out, here is a short video I did at the event yesterday:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100928/cisco-does-doobies-so-whats-next-in-the-consumer-space/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20100909/viral-video-gaga-says-make-love-not-war-wear-outfits/ http://allthingsd.com/20100909/viral-video-gaga-says-make-love-not-war-wear-outfits/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:22:10 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=33562

Here’s a very funny video, caught by a concertgoer at a recent stop on the Lady Gaga extravaganza, “The Monster Ball Tour,” in Washington, D.C.

In it, she stops her antics cold to end a fight in the audience during her performance of “Just Dance,” using it for maximum entertainment.

In other words, turning people acting like monsters into her little monsters.

Enjoy:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100909/viral-video-gaga-says-make-love-not-war-wear-outfits/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100512/ticketfly-rounds-up-3-million-to-fight-ticketmaster/ http://allthingsd.com/20100512/ticketfly-rounds-up-3-million-to-fight-ticketmaster/#comments Wed, 12 May 2010 15:30:10 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=19346 Average concertgoers go to two shows a year, and there’s a very good chance some of the money they spend on those shows goes to Ticketmaster, which dominates the ticketing business.

So here’s a company that wants a piece of that: TicketFly, a New York-based start-up that just raised a $2 million Series A round led by High Peaks Venture Partners and Contour Venture Partners. The company had previously raised $1 million in convertible debt last year, via angels Howard Lindzon and Roger Ehrenberg, among others.

If TicketFly works, there’s a good chance you won’t ever know about it, because it’s a B2B business: Consumers fund the operation via surcharges on their tickets, but the real customers are the concert venues, which strike exclusive deals with ticketing companies.

So most of the features are designed with the venues and promoters in mind. TicketFly says it can help with Web site design and management, promoting shows on Twitter and Facebook, tracking sales data in real time, etc.

All of this sounds like fairly straightforward stuff, but the ticketing business is an old, archaic one. And Ticketmaster, the industry’s eight million-pound gorilla, now owned by Live Nation (LYV), is particularly slow-moving when it comes to all things tech. So some of this really will feel fresh for the concert guys.

More interesting are TicketFly’s plans, which involve giving venues the chance to sell tickets using the same dynamic pricing/yield management techniques hotels and airlines use: That is, prices for hot shows may shoot up, and if you want to see a band no one else wants to see, you may end up paying very little.

TicketFly has about 50 venues signed up so far, and most are fairly intimate places like Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J., or the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis–the kinds of of places where you could see Nirvana before Nirvana became Nirvana.

They’re also the kinds of places that used be served by TicketWeb, another Web-based upstart that Ticketmaster acquired a few years back. No coincidence: TicketFly co-founder Andrew Dreskin used to run that company.

Here’s a little wayback machine: Nirvana at Maxwell’s in 1989. Audio and video quality is about as rough as you’d imagine:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100512/ticketfly-rounds-up-3-million-to-fight-ticketmaster/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100322/ben-folds-and-the-mystery-of-merton-the-chatroulette-piano-guy/ http://allthingsd.com/20100322/ben-folds-and-the-mystery-of-merton-the-chatroulette-piano-guy/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:00:12 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=17661 Today seems like a good day to spend time pondering some of life’s deeper mysteries.

Such as: Is the awesome Chatroulette Piano guy, who calls himself “Merton,” actually Ben Folds? Merton says no, but he said that on YouTube, which is different from saying so under oath.

And last Friday, Folds performed a Merton-style improv at a concert in Charlotte, N.C. At a minimum, the two guys have a very similar skill set.

Investigate for yourself. If a smattering of genial but R-rated cursing is a problem in your workplace, then you’ll want to watch at home or with the volume turned down:

UPDATE: YouTube removed the original “Merton” video on Monday due to “terms of use violation”. An edited version is back up. Figuring out why YouTube takes down videos is often an exercise in futility, but Mashable makes a reasonable guess here: It thinks YouTube received privacy complaints from some of the Chatrouletters. Which is preposterous, of course, since they’re willing participants in a video voyeur site — and so far I haven’t seen any changes on the Ben Folds clip. But whatever. I’ve asked YouTube for clarification.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100322/ben-folds-and-the-mystery-of-merton-the-chatroulette-piano-guy/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100204/surprise-of-the-day-people-still-buying-some-music/ http://allthingsd.com/20100204/surprise-of-the-day-people-still-buying-some-music/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:48:54 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=15938 The music industry’s decline has been so prolonged that this now qualifies as a man-bites-dog story: Sony says its music sales actually went up, just a bit, in the last quarter.

The conglomerate’s music division doesn’t represent much more than a footnote in its overall financial picture, but in the last quarter, it was at least a positive footnote. Sales were up two percent–seven percent if you cancel out currency fluctuations–and operating profit was up 8.2 percent.

Hard to argue that this uptick will be sustainable, though. Sony (SNE) says the boost came from a couple individual success stories that will be hard to repeat, for obvious reasons: People bought lots of copies of the soundtrack to “This Is It,” the Michael Jackson concert movie, as well as the debut album from cultural oddity/viral video favorite Susan Boyle.

Looking for more traditional music business news? I can oblige: Music industry types tell me they’re freaked out that physical sales could take another steep tumble this year if retailers like Wal-Mart (WMT) and Best Buy (BBY) shrink the tiny amount of floorspace they devote to CDs yet again. And they’re also worried that digital sales are finally flattening out.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100204/surprise-of-the-day-people-still-buying-some-music/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100125/ticketmaster-live-nation-merger-gets-conditional-thumbs-up-from-doj-plus-d7-video-with-ceo-azoff/ http://allthingsd.com/20100125/ticketmaster-live-nation-merger-gets-conditional-thumbs-up-from-doj-plus-d7-video-with-ceo-azoff/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:46:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=23474

While many thought it would not sail through regulatory scrutiny easily, and it has taken a year, the merger of two entertainment industry giants–Ticketmaster and Live Nation–can go forward as long as a certain set of conditions is met, the Department of Justice said.

And while DOJ’s antitrust head, Christine Varney, told reporters today that she warned the two companies that the federal government was prepared to litigate if necessary, it–well–did not.

“We concluded the transaction as originally proposed was anti-competitive,” said Varney, a statement that was pretty much negated by her decision not to block the merger, given that the conditions she set were not a stretch for the parties to meet.

Still, Varney noted: “The proposed settlement allows for strong competitors to Ticketmaster, allowing concert venues to have more and better choices for their ticketing needs, and provides for anti-retaliation provisions, which will keep the merged company in check.”

We shall see about that–many are expecting even higher ticket prices and “fees.”

The companies also reached an agreement with 17 State Attorneys General as part of the U.S. consent decree, as well as with the Canadian Commissioner of Competition.

Not surprisingly, shares of both West Hollywood-based Ticketmaster (TKTM) and Live Nation (LYV) of Beverly Hills, Calif., were up about 15 percent today, even though the deal still has to undergo public comment and be approved by a judge.

But after today, Ticketmaster investors will get Live Nation stock, valued at $15.49, and with its ticker retired, Ticketmaster shares will no longer trade.

Now the combined company will be able to do everything from selling tickets to booking artists to selling their T-shirts and more.

And all Live Nation and Ticketmaster have to do to operate like this is sell off a college sports ticketing unit to Comcast (CMCSA) and license ticketing software to Live Nation’s nearest competitor, the Anschutz Entertainment Group.

Also, for a decade, the merged company cannot play dirty, blackballing those who decide they don’t want to use its services.

With 75 big venues across the U.S. under the purview of Live Nation, that’s a lot of places the world’s largest concert promoter could apply pressure.

And because Ticketmaster is the dominant player in ticketing for sports and entertainment events, as well as the manager of a spate of major acts that play at those Live Nation venues, it’s clear you have a very powerful entity.

It will all be led, in part, by Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff, who can be seen below in an interview with BoomTown at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference last May.

One of the most influential behind-the-scenes movers and shakers in the music industry for a long time now, Azoff talked about with me about the merger and digital forces buffeting the entertainment business.

Azoff will be the executive chairman of the merged company, which will be called Live Nation Entertainment, as well as CEO of Front Line artist management. Longtime Hollywood and Internet mogul Barry Diller is set to be chairman, and Michael Rapino will be CEO and president.

Here’s the video of the D7 interview, including the very funny intro that music legend Joe Walsh of the Eagles did for Azoff (and below it, a video of a terrific version of “Life’s Been Good,” sung by Walsh, which it certainly is today for Ticketmaster-Live Nation):

And here’s the press release from Live Nation and Ticketmaster:

LOS ANGELES and WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jan 25, 2010–Live Nation, Inc. and Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. today announced that they have reached agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and with the Canadian Commissioner of Competition, clearing the way for the merger of the companies. Upon closing, the company will be renamed Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. to reflect the combination of Live Nation’s concert promotions expertise with Ticketmaster’s world-class ticketing solutions and artist relationships.

Under the terms of the proposed final judgment filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the companies have agreed to divest Ticketmaster’s self-ticketing subsidiary, Paciolan, to Comcast-Spectacor and to license the Ticketmaster Host technology to Anschutz Entertainment Group, Inc., as well as to other terms that protect competitive conditions in ticketing and promotions. Seventeen State Attorneys General also participated in the matter and have joined in the U.S. consent decree. The parties’ consent agreement with the Canadian Commissioner of Competition is on substantially equivalent terms.

As previously announced, in connection with the merger, each issued and outstanding share of Ticketmaster common stock will be cancelled and converted into the right to receive a number of shares of Live Nation common stock such that Ticketmaster stockholders will receive approximately 50.01% of the voting power of the combined company. Subject to final confirmation, the companies expect each share of Ticketmaster common stock to be cancelled and converted into the right to receive 1.474 shares of Live Nation common stock in connection with the merger and for Live Nation to issue approximately 84,613,661 shares of Live Nation common stock to Ticketmaster stockholders in the aggregate.

The combined company will be led by Michael Rapino as CEO and President of Live Nation Entertainment and Irving Azoff as Executive Chairman of Live Nation Entertainment and CEO of Front Line. Barry Diller will serve as Chairman of the Board of Live Nation Entertainment. The Board will consist of 14 directors, seven from each company.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100125/ticketmaster-live-nation-merger-gets-conditional-thumbs-up-from-doj-plus-d7-video-with-ceo-azoff/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20091029/utube-10-million-streams-for-bono-and-co-s-live-show/ http://allthingsd.com/20091029/utube-10-million-streams-for-bono-and-co-s-live-show/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:22:34 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=12542 What happens when one of the biggest bands in the world Webcasts a live concert on the world’s biggest video site?

You get a lot of video streams. Close to 10 million, says YouTube, adding that Sunday’s live Webcast of U2′s Rose Bowl concert was the single largest event it has streamed so far.

Granted, Google’s (GOOG) video site only started streaming live events last year, and doesn’t do them very often. But this was a pretty good muscle-flexing event, and by all accounts it went pretty well–I read some gripes about the site limiting transfer speeds, but many more raves about the quality of picture and sound.

That 10 million number, spread out over two-plus hours, doesn’t really tell us how many people watched the concert or how many did so concurrently. YouTube’s first attempt at live streaming, its weird “YouTube Live” concert/award show, may have attracted a peak audience of 700,000.

For some context, consider that last week’s episode of “The Mentalist” on CBS (CBS) drew 11.8 million viewers, which made it the 20th-ranked show in the U.S. But the fact that YouTube is even playing in the same league gives you a sense of the site’s reach.

And recall that YouTube boasted this month that it is now streaming more than one billion streams per day, which means that the overwhelming majority of its users were watching something other than Bono and company on Sunday.

You can see an amazingly high-quality version of the concert here, though it isn’t embeddable. But here’s a clip of a fake U2 concert from a couple of years ago.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091029/utube-10-million-streams-for-bono-and-co-s-live-show/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090928/how-the-youtube-warner-music-deal-got-done-meet-vevo-jr/ http://allthingsd.com/20090928/how-the-youtube-warner-music-deal-got-done-meet-vevo-jr/#comments Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:42:26 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=11456 Warner Music and YouTube, co-owners of the one of the Web’s nastiest spats, are about to patch things up. How’d they do it? By cutting a deal that looks a lot like the one YouTube has already made with Universal Music Group.

Last December, talks between Warner and YouTube to renew a licensing deal broke down, and Warner’s videos disappeared from the world’s largest video site. Now, as Advertising Age has reported, an agreement is in the works that will bring Green Day, Madonna and their label-mates back to the site.

What hasn’t been reported, so far: The deal terms themselves. Neither company is talking, but sources familiar with the negotiations tell me the new pact will be similar to the one Google’s (GOOG) video unit struck earlier this year with Universal Music Group.

That deal created Vevo, a sort of “Hulu for music videos,” owned by Universal and Sony (SNE). So think of Warner’s deal as a “son of Vevo.”

The big idea is the same: Try to create more value for videos by limiting their distribution and creating a more ad-friendly atmosphere around them, and share ad revenue between YouTube and the videos’ owner. The big points:

• Unlike Vevo, Warner and YouTube won’t be creating a separate site for Warner videos, and Warner won’t be creating a separate company dedicated to its videos. Instead, YouTube will help Warner create a “premium advertising platform” for its videos within YouTube.
• Warner will take primary responsibility for selling its videos, and YouTube will receive a cut of the revenue.
• Warner will no longer receive a licensing fee each time one of its videos is played.

I gather that a lot of this is still being hashed out, and some of this will evolve even after the deal is inked. For instance, Warner needs to figure out how it’s going to sell advertising for its clips, since it doesn’t have its own sales force. Timing is also up in the air: Even after the two sides formally announce the pact, users shouldn’t expect to see Warner videos instantly reappearing on YouTube; it may be that they only get rolled out as the new ad platform is built.

Then there’s the ad platform itself: I haven’t been able to get a concrete definition of what this is supposed to look like, but for now, I’m imagining something like the “channels” YouTube has made for partners like ESPN, except they’d be made on an artist-by-artist basis.

All in all, this sounds like a fair deal. Warner loses a guaranteed revenue stream, but if its contention about the value of its videos is correct, it will make even more than it did under the old arrangement. Meanwhile, YouTube gets to hang onto “premium” inventory without being locked into the kind of  pay-per-play arrangement that helped drive the site’s expenses sky-high.

The potential downside for YouTube: If this works–or if the Vevo deal works–it will have to create similar packages/portals/platforms to retain or attract other “premium” content suppliers, like, say Hollywood studios. But given that the site has had limited success getting those guys on board so far, that’s not the worst fate in the world.

In the meantime, even though Green Day is Warner act, you can still find plenty of its clips on YouTube–it’s just that most of them are odds and ends like this grainy concert video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090928/how-the-youtube-warner-music-deal-got-done-meet-vevo-jr/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090811/mossberg-does-moby/ http://allthingsd.com/20090811/mossberg-does-moby/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:43:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17393

Last night, onstage at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, my most excellent partner, Walt Mossberg, interviewed well-known techno musician Moby about music and entertainment in the digital age.

The wide-ranging talk was part of an ongoing cultural festival series organized by The Wall Street Journal, called Summer Scoops Live.

Here are three video clips from the event:

If you prefer to read, here is a live blog that Michelle Kung did of the event to enjoy:

7:30 p.m.–Out of the steaming heat and into the cool, air-conditioned confines of Lincoln Center’s Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.

7:39 p.m.–The lights dim and Moby and Mossberg make their entrances. Moby slinks down in his chair (“Am I greasy, or is it the chair?”) just before WSJ culture editor Christopher John Farley introduces the pair.

7:43 p.m.–Mossberg plugs his son, who’s in a band, before asking Moby–whose real name is Richard Melville Hall–if he is really related to “Moby Dick” author Herman Melville. Moby replies that that is what his parents have always told him and explains the origins of his moniker: “When I was 11 minutes old, my parents looked at me and I was this little grub of a baby and my mother said, Richard Melville Hall is a very grown up name, and my father said jokingly, let’s call him ‘Moby.’ All these years later, I still have this name I’ve have from infancy.”

7:46 p.m.–Mossberg asks Moby, in between jokes about being both being bald-ish, about the difference between “Play” and his new album, “Wait for Me.” Moby begins by talking about how the success of “Play” completely surprised him, because he was considered a “has been” by the time the album was originally released in the early 1990s and that Rolling Stone refused to review the album. His success with the album also confused him, because he was unsure of his next step–was he supposed to listen to the label now? To the fans? To himself?

“Wait for Me,” his ninth studio album, was designed as a return to simplicity, and created with old instruments–many of which were purchased on eBay–in his bedroom in Manhattan. When Mossberg asks Moby to clarity what he means by “his bedroom,” the musicians lays out out his floorplan–he lives in a two-bedroom apartment on Mott Street and with a small space (“two people starts to feel claustrophobic”) set aside for his music work.

7:52 p.m.–Moby uses a Mossberg question as an excuse to slam Jay Leno, whom he calls the “least prepared interviewer.” He fakes a Leno voice, and mock interviews: “So Moby, you have a new record. Tell me about it.” Mossberg interjects, “So I have a low bar?” to the delight of the crowd.

7:53 p.m.–Mossberg asks Moby how he used technology in “Wait for Me.” Moby begins by explaining that while he loves technology, he don’t fetishize it like some of his friends. “I have an 18″ flat screen TV. A bigger screen doesn’t make TV any better. ‘Family Guy’ is still funny on a little TV. If it works and doesn’t cause me undue stress, I love it.’

7:55 p.m.–Moby launches into an explanation of what Pro Tools and plugins are, and how thanks to this nifty recording/mixing operating system, he can take prerecorded “notes” that have been recorded abroad, say, in places like Vienna, and then recreate a 60-piece orchestra on his keyboard.

7:59 p.m.–On to issues of intellectual property. Moby says: “I don’t mind when people pirate my music–if you want to steal my music, more power to you.” Mossberg immediately asks, “Why?” And he deadpans, “Deep-seated emotional issues.” He then goes on to explain that personally, he’s so honored that people want to listen to his music, he doesn’t want to restrict access to it. “I don’t have alimony, I don’t need insulin…I don’t have crystal meth problems.” Thus, he personally doesn’t mind, but he can only speak for himself. But to clarify, he does want you to buy his album so his friends at the label are happy.

8:04 p.m.–Mossberg and Moby discuss the RIAA’s decision to sue customers. Moby says that it’s never been cheaper to make music, videos, and promote albums. EMI, he thinks, broke even. So why are they alienating their customers?

8:06 p.m.–Blind item alert! Moby says that a few years ago, he was talking to a record label head, and when he asked the top honcho about their iTunes plan for their biggest star’s newest album, he was told, oh, we’re going to wait a couple months.

Moby then launches into philosophy mode and brings up the is/ought fallacy to illustrate his point, noting that the current music model “underpins the failure of major labels–they think, it used to be this way, so it ought to be this way.” Their ethos is, “Please go away. Make the future die.” Mossberg suggests he write a song/album with that title. Moby quips back with “Young People Suck” as a potential label-inspired tune.

8:12 p.m.–Moby adds a qualifier to his comments, touting Mute, his own record label. “Mute is wonderful, and they care about music–it’s the big major labels who have been egregiously bad stewards of music. It’s hard to feel bad for them when they’ve brought us some of the worst music ever created.” He then gets in a dig at Lars Ulrich of Metallica, saying that if he needs a “fur-lined walking humidor,” that’s him.

8:15 p.m.–Moby asks the audience if he can get pedantic for a moment. They cheer their assent. He then launches into a story about the early days of the Beatles, a band that got “lucky” because everything they did was in mono. “The first ‘Meet the Beatles’ was recorded in four hours. They played the songs and it was done.” He explains how this is not possible anymore.

8:18 p.m.–Yay! Moving on to a discussion about Auto-Tune, which “enables anyone to fake perfect pitch.” Moby declines to name names in his anecdotes, because he has enough feuds already, but singles out Cher’s “I Believe” as the first of the supremely auto-tuned songs, and mourns how kids can’t recognize real singing anymore. Next, a discussion of playback, aka the technology that failed Ashlee Simpson when she was reduced to her now infamous hoedown on “Saturday Night Live.”

8:23 p.m.–Memory lane for Mossberg. He recalls seeing the Supremes, and Simon & Garfunkel in the ’60s for $3/ticket in a gym, and how the concerts back then used to sound just like the album. But everything is much more complicated now.

8:25 p.m.–Moby talks about how he plays to bigger crowds in Europe, and how he can enjoy the concert experience. Playing in front of a big crowd, he says, with big production values, is the musician’s equivalent of playing the big penis card.

8:28 p.m.–Mossberg asks: When you make music, do you have to consider the fact that it’s going to be listened to on [Apple] iPods and [Microsoft] Zunes? Moby says sadly yes, and tells a story about how super-processed music works on the subway, because the noise of the L train doesn’t interfere with, say, a song by Rihanna, but the subtleties of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” will get lost.

8:32 p.m.–Mossberg moves on to playing a snippet of the song “Pale Horses” from “Wait for Me” because we’re running late, and Moby says he has to pee–”Syphilis is a demanding mistress.” Mossberg: “Bill Gates doesn’t say that to me…I can’t believe I’m defending Microsoft.” Moby: “I’m just saying the Zune is clumsy as hell.” [For those lacking the implied sarcasm, Moby clarifies later on that he does not, in fact, have syphilis.]

Moby on “Pale Horses” and many of his other songs: 80% of the work is done in a couple days, but it’s the finishing stuff that is what really takes a really long time. To get the job done, he holes himself with the music–”Hopefully, a more benign version of Ted Kaczynski during the creative process.”

8:40 p.m.–Audience Q&A time. Moby is asked about his licensing deals, and says he doesn’t license music anymore, because he’s sick of being the whipping boy for the process. Which is ironic, because everyone’s selling out now. He adds that he initially licensed the music for “Play,” because it allowed more people to hear the album.

8:46 p.m.–Moby interrupts a question-asker to comment on how he wishes the stage were against the left window like a previous panel he was on, so everyone could get a glimpse of the view. The questioner then proceeds to take out a Chilean flag and hold it up before asking Moby if there’s relationship between his music and the cosmos. The short answer? Yes.

8:51 p.m.–Mossberg sums up the evening and offers kudos to Moby for sharing his time and process.

8:52 p.m.–Moby plugs a new tour date in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And good night everybody!

And, here is a rather unusual cartoon video of Moby being interviewed by a dog that the Journal did:

And, here is a video of Moby last week, talking about the digital impact of the music, in an interview on the Leonard Lopate radio show on WNYC:

Finally, here is a Q&A that Walt did with Flavorpill’s Caroline Stanley about a range of tech trends, as a preview to the event.

[Moby photo credit: AFP/Getty]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090811/mossberg-does-moby/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090205/the-boss-says-no-bruce-springsteen-already-campaigning-against-ticketmaster-live-nation-deal/ http://allthingsd.com/20090205/the-boss-says-no-bruce-springsteen-already-campaigning-against-ticketmaster-live-nation-deal/#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:56:44 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=3925 Struggling Ticketmaster, which holds a near-monopoly on concert ticket sales, wants to merge with struggling Live Nation (LYV), which is the biggest concert promoter in the world. Will antitrust regulators let this one fly?

We’ll find out once the reported deal becomes official, which could happen as early as Friday. In the meantime, you can consider the varied opinions of antitrust attorneys and experts quoted in The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Or you can just ask the Boss, who gives the deal an unqualified thumbs down.

The story: Bruce Springsteen happens to be embarking on yet another megatour (perhaps you caught him on TV the other day). Said tour, which is using Ticketmaster (TKTM) to sell tickets (again, like just about everyone else in the concert business) has already run into a snafu involving TicketsNow, the “secondary marketplace” (i.e., legal aftermarket/scalping) company Ticketmaster bought last year.

If you want the details, you can consult Springsteen’s Web site, where the musician and manager Jon Landau have posted a long apology. Or you can cut to the chase:

The one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours.”

And that’s the thing: There are plenty of companies Americans enjoy disliking, but most of them have some kind of lobby and political clout to help shrug off that animus. But just about anyone who’s bought a concert ticket has at some point cursed Ticketmaster for some kind of perceived slight or insult. And unlike banks, oil, health care or any of our favorite bugaboos, it’s hard to argue that ticket brokers perform some crucial function in our economy, so we have to put up with it.

Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff is one shrewd dude. But he’s going to have to be awfully persuasive to find people in Washington willing to back this one when it gets to Washington.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090205/the-boss-says-no-bruce-springsteen-already-campaigning-against-ticketmaster-live-nation-deal/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081218/u2s-live-nation-deal-is-good-for-madonna-bad-for-investors/ http://allthingsd.com/20081218/u2s-live-nation-deal-is-good-for-madonna-bad-for-investors/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:08:40 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=2278

In addition to myriad rock star perks you’ve already heard about, here’s another one to add to the list: Better stock deals. At least when you’re talking about stock in concert promoter Live Nation.

The company spun off from the radio and billboard giant Clear Channel a couple years ago and has been trying to lock up big name artists to exclusive deals by shoveling tons of loot their way. Madonna, U2, Jay-Z and others have gladly accepted pacts that pay them hundreds of millions of dollars to work exclusively with the company.

Some of those payments have been in stock, which is supposed to indicate that the company and the music acts are all in the same boat. And since Live Nation (LYV) shares have gotten pummeled, you’d think those music acts would be hurting too. Nope.

The Wall Street Journal:

Live Nation had guaranteed that U2 would receive $25 million for 1.6 million shares. But the current market value was just $6.1 million at the close of trading Wednesday. That leaves Live Nation on the hook for the balance, which the company said Wednesday in a SEC filing it would pay with cash on hand or borrowed money.

There could be more bad news coming from another of the company’s marquee acts: Madonna. In April, Madonna is eligible to sell $25 million of stock under the terms of her contract, even though the stock’s market value has plunged 83 percent since she struck her deal in October 2007.”

That’s lousy news for Live Nation shareholders. U2′s cash-out put even more pressure on the stock (the company is selling 1.56 million shares of its own to help pay for U2′s deal), and news of the Madonna deal will do the same.

The bigger question is whether Live Nation’s strategy ever made sense: It was supposed to use the big name acts to help it expand beyond the concert business and into other revenue streams… like selling CDs. Understandable why the company wanted to diversify beyond concerts, which are high-risk, low-margin affairs. But signing big acts to big, guaranteed contracts is one of the things that got the music business in the trouble it’s in now.

But let’s give the old music industry some credit: It did bring us some pretty good music. Here’s U2, circa 1983:

U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
Uploaded by newcanadian

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20081218/u2s-live-nation-deal-is-good-for-madonna-bad-for-investors/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080627/viral-video-tim-mcgraw-tosses-rowdy-fan/ http://allthingsd.com/20080627/viral-video-tim-mcgraw-tosses-rowdy-fan/#comments Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:03:25 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=2241

Here’s another viral video that is making the rounds this week of country singer Tim McGraw himself ejecting a rowdy fan from a concert earlier this week.

This video, taken by another concert-goer, was from a McGraw performance at the White River Amphitheatre in Auburn, Wash. It shows McGraw hauling a man by the belt out of the front row, after McGraw alleged he saw him hit a woman.

After a bit of a scuffle, security intervenes and McGraw continues his song, “Indian Outlaw,” with the perfect line: “I ain’t looking for trouble.”

Indeed, but it found him.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080627/viral-video-tim-mcgraw-tosses-rowdy-fan/feed/ 0