Everyone’s mad at Ticketmaster, but will anything change?

“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

What’s happening

Senators from both sides of the aisle railed against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, accusing the entertainment giant of being a “monopoly” that gouges consumers and exploits artists during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

“May I suggest respectfully that Ticketmaster ought to look in the mirror and say, ‘I'm the problem, it's me,’” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said during the hearing.

Blumenthal’s statement was indicative of the hearing as a whole, which featured a stream of strong criticism aimed at Ticketmaster occasionally peppered with references to songs by Taylor Swift. While Ticketmaster has faced strong criticism for decades, issues stemming with its dominance of the ticketing industry were thrust into the national spotlight after the botched rollout of tickets for Swift’s “Eras” tour in November. Massive demand for tickets overwhelmed Ticketmaster’s online system, forcing millions of fans to endure frozen queues and site crashes as they struggled to secure their seats.

The hearing focused less on the technical issues that led to the debacle and more on how Ticketmaster’s extraordinary power in the industry may stifle competition, drive up prices and leave artists with few alternatives when touring.

Ticketmaster controls about 70% of the ticketing industry in the U.S. In 2010, the company merged with Live Nation — a major concert promoter that has a similar hold over the live-events industry. During the hearing, several senators argued that the merger turned the newly aligned companies into such a dominant force that it violates antitrust laws aimed at preventing powerful corporations from choking competition in an industry. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly opened an investigation into whether Live Nation abused its power.

Why there’s debate

With its bungling of the Swift ticket release, Ticketmaster accomplished the rare feat of bringing Democrats and Republicans to the same side of an issue. There’s debate, however, over whether the high-profile fervor will lead to any measurable changes to improve the concertgoing experience for consumers, artists and venues.

Optimists are hopeful that this latest push will succeed where past efforts to limit Ticketmaster’s influence, most notably a campaign led by grunge icons Pearl Jam in the early 1990s, have failed. They believe it’s possible that the DOJ or Congress could seize on the intense public desire for action to impose new rules that promote more competition in the music industry and ultimately make events less expensive for fans and more profitable for artists. The DOJ or Congress could even go so far, some argue, as to force Live Nation and Ticketmaster to unwind their merger and become separate companies again.

But skeptics question whether lawmakers have the commitment to follow through with any substantive action beyond publicly berating company executives. Others make the case that even the most dramatic action potentially on the table — splitting up the companies — would merely create two separate monopolies in the ticketing and events spaces and wouldn’t measurably improve circumstances for consumers.

Some industry experts say that for all of its mistakes, Ticketmaster isn’t the reason the concert experience has become such a mess. They argue that the company is so dominant because it's the only entity capable of managing the logistics of the modern ticketing process, at least in most cases. Some make the case that no action against Ticketmaster would solve the fundamental problem plaguing the industry: That there is far too much demand for a limited number of tickets to marquee events.

What’s next

There’s no timetable for when the DOJ might complete its investigation into Live Nation’s actions. If the DOJ ultimately decides to file an antitrust lawsuit, the matter would then go before a judge who would decide whether the company should be split up.

Perspectives

OPTIMISTS

The Swift debacle is such a massive mistake that it really could upend the ticketing market

“Live Nation may finally have created a PR nightmare from which it won’t be able to save itself by bullying businesses. … It’s clear that Live Nation isn’t following the pledges it made. Rather than try to nudge the company to act correctly through incentives, it’s time to reverse the merger and break up the Live Nation–Ticketmaster behemoth.” — Mike Konczal, Nation

The public will keep pressure high to enact change