Buzzfeed: ASIB Is A Very Good Movie Produced By A Very Bad Company

[BUtterfield 8 40,280]

*NOTE: The link to the full article below contains ASIB Spoilers*

Rich is the irony for those who stick around to watch the closing credits to see “Executive Producer Michael Rapino” and “Live Nation Productions.”

Live Nation/Ticketmaster is the global conglomerate determined to monopolize the concert industry — a strategy of “crush, kill, destroy,” by swallowing independent competitors and driving ticket prices ever higher.

Some of Live Nation’s own employees call it the Death Star, and Rapino is its CEO, president, and Darth Vader. 

The Live Nation/Ticketmaster story:

The story starts in the late ’90s with entrepreneur Robert F.X. Sillerman. Flush with $2 billion in cash from selling the chain of bland corporate radio stations he’d built, he began gobbling up regional concert promoters with a similar Pac-Man-like strategy of corporate consolidation

By 2000, SFX Entertainment was the world’s largest concert promoter. Then he sold that company, too, netting $4.5 billion from Clear Channel, a big player in outdoor advertising.

By 2005 it split into three separate mega-companies. Clear Channel Outdoor does billboards; iHeartMedia controls much of American radio, and Live Nation is determined to own the concert market.

Things got even worse in 2009 when Live Nation announced plans to merge with Ticketmaster.

Ticketmaster secured market dominance in the early ’90s by buying all its rivals. It locked up venues from the enormodomes down to small clubs.

The service and “convenience” fees levied by Ticketmaster add as much as 50% to the cost of a ticket, according to industry studies. Ticketmaster kicks back a portion of those fees to the promoter, the venue, and sometimes the artists.

These practices prompted an investigation by the Clinton Justice Department in 1994. The Clinton administration ultimately decided Ticketmaster wasn’t a monopoly.

Live Nation’s coupling with Ticketmaster prompted another round of hearings on Capitol Hill during the Obama administration. The deal was approved regardless.

By the time of the merger, ticket prices for the top 100 concert tours had risen 142% over the last decade. In the years since, ticket costs have kept skyrocketing, thanks in part to scams such as fans bidding against each other for seats instead of buying them at a fixed cost and set-asides for the scalpers. Live Nation/Ticketmaster is now so big that in many cities, artists either work with the Death Star, or they have nowhere else to play.

Live Nation/Ticketmaster only recently entered the movie business, after testing the waters with a few documentaries, including Gaga: Five Foot Two in 2017. A Star Is Born is shaping up to be its first Hollywood blockbuster, complete with Oscar buzz. But it’s impossible to imagine a company more at odds with the values of authenticity and independence championed in the film it bankrolled.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jimderogatis/a-star-is-born-produced-by-ticketmaster-live-nation?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeednews&ref=bffbbuzzfeednews

[jinko 5,427]

OH WOW. The Oscar take-down is REAL 

And it's so fking dirty!  They really had to attach the a concert monopolization issue with a movie! 

[RAMROD 102,190]

Who cares about what they said?!!! Freaking leech!!

[Shipper 12,861]

I wanted a twinkie but I got a tiramisu instead in this article. 

[Guest Adarsh]

They're being paid by other production houses obviously 

[Noah 26,303]

I don't know how Buzzfeed is to talk about a "bad company" when they underpay their workers, have them in horrible contracts, steal from smaller content creators and do not credit them in any way.

[DONAJENDRO 1,914]

14 minutes ago, Noah said:

I don't know how Buzzfeed is to talk about a "bad company" when they underpay their workers, have them in horrible contracts, steal from smaller content creators and do not credit them in any way shape of form.

Omf maybe you snapped