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Live Nation Entertainment is hoping the incoming representatives of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) will be more open to potential settlement discussions surrounding its antitrust lawsuit than the previous administration.
The comments came from Joe Berchtold, Live Nation’s chief financial officer, during an earnings call yesterday (Thursday) after the company posted a relatively modest increase in full-year revenue to $23bn (£18.2bn/€22bn) in 2024, up from $22.7bn in 2023.
During the call, Live Nation CEO and president Michael Rapino also revealed that the company had held talks with demand-side platforms (DSP) Amazon, Apple and Spotify over the possibility of opening up ticketing presale access for premium subscribers.
Antitrust talks?
On the DOJ issue, Berchtold was responding to a question about updates on the legal process and whether there was any potential to advance discussions with the agency given that President Donald Trump’s DOJ antitrust nominee Gail Slater had “indicated some openness to settlements where effective remedies can be put into place”.
Berchtold said: “The trial process continues to move apace as it has targeted early next year for a trial date.
“Is there a path towards a resolution with the DOJ that doesn’t lead to the trial? We’ve said in the last administration, there was really no interest in any discussion on settlement. So, we’re hoping that this DOJ returns to a more traditional approach and is open.
“But we haven’t had any discussions yet. The person that you would discuss it with has been approved yet, not been appointed. So until that happens, there’s nothing we can do. And we’ll see how that plays out in the coming months, but [there’s] nothing really substantively new.”
Slater served in Trump’s previous administration and was also a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff attorney early in her career. She is also considered to be more aggressive in her approach in some areas than what might traditionally be expected from a Republican nominee.
DSP discussions
In other news, Rapino confirmed that discussions had taken place with DSPs just days after it emerged that Spotify’s rumoured ‘superfan’ tier could launch this year with potential perks such as early access to concert tickets.
“We have a lot of pre-sale programmes in place with… [the] Verizons and Citibanks, etc. So, our job is always to look at that show, work with the artist and figure out… ways to maximise that inventory to business, as well as consumers,” Rapino said.
“As far as the latest rounds of Spotify and Apple and Amazon, they’ve approached us all. We’ve talked to them all about ideas if they wanted inventory. There’s a cost to that and we would entertain and look at that option if it made sense for us in comparison to other options we have for that pre-sale, which is a very valuable asset.”
Modest growth
On the latest financial results, Live Nation’s moderate year-on-year growth in 2024 delivered operating income of $825m – down 24% from the revised total of $1.085bn for 2023 – but adjusted operating income (AOI) of $2.146bn, which was a 14% rise on $1.881bn the previous year.
Within the concert segment, revenue totalled $19bn, an increase of 2% compared to the year prior. Sponsorship and advertising generated $1.2bn for 2024, up from just under $1.1bn.
Ticketmaster achieved a record fourth quarter to round off 2024, with revenue of $841m in the final three months of the year – an increase of 14% versus Q4 of 2023. Ticketmaster’s turnover reached $3bn in 2024 – a 1% increase on $2.96bn in 2023.
Additionally, 151 million fans attended Live Nation events last year, and 65 million tickets have already been sold for Live Nation concerts in 2025.
Live Nation chief executive and president Michael Rapino said that artists were becoming more and more educated on the best way to price a ticket, making sure it is still accessible for fans to attend major stadium concerts while protecting them from scalpers.
“So, we love seeing these stadiums sitting somewhere around 95% sold out right now. The instantly sold at 10am means we’ve transferred a lot of wealth to the scalpers,” he said.
Second-quarter and third-quarter stadium show activity is expected to be the primary growth driver for 2025.
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