Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger puts Chicago institution Jam on the ropes
Jerry Mickelson, the cofounder of Chicago-based concert promoter Jam Productions, took a day to absorb the impact of the $4.4 billion Live Nation-Ticketmaster merger, greenlighted Monday by the Department of Justice, and then spoke his mind.
“I appreciate the time that the Department of Justice put into this, but I don’t think it does much to help the consumer,” he said Tuesday with rare understatement.More forcefully, Mickelson sees the Justice Department’s decision as contradicting the landmark 1948 U.S. Supreme Court anti-trust decision against Paramount Pictures. The court ruled that movie studios could not own theatres and exclusive rights on where their films could be shown. The movie companies had to divest themselves of their theater holdings, and Mickelson believes Ticketmaster and Live Nation should’ve been instructed to unload their management company and other music-related businesses before the Justice Department gave them the go-ahead to merge.
“I brought that up when I was interviewed by the Justice Department, but it was ignored,” he said.
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