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Live Nation chairman to step down
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 29 September 2010
Barry Diller will stand down as Chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, according to Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. Given recent rumours of run-ins between Diller and Live Nation’s top two executives, Irving Azoff and Michael Rapino, his departure will not be a surprise to anyone really, though Diller is seemingly insisting he always intended to only lead the board of the ticketing and live music giant for a short time anyway.
Diller was at the top of the Ticketmaster tree prior to its merger with Live Nation at the start of the year, his company IAC having bought 50% of the ticketing giant in 1997 before taking complete ownership in 2002. He spun the ticketing firm off from the IAC empire making it a standalone entity in 2008, but he stayed on as an influential board member, seemingly getting on well with the newly independent Ticketmaster’s chair and CEO, Terry Barnes and Sean Moriarty respectively.
Soon after gaining its independence, Ticketmaster bought leading artist management agency Front Line and its chief, Irving Azoff, was given a senior executive role at the ticketing firm. Azoff subsequently increased his influence there, so that when it announced its merger with Live Nation in early 2009 it was he that became the ticketing giant’s representative at the top of the combined company, working alongside Live Nation’s top man Rapino.
Many of the other Ticketmaster top guard, including Moriarty, departed as the merger took place. And while Azoff, in theory, is the top executive at the merged enterprise, his interest is in artist development rather than selling tickets, so control of the ticketing operations at the joined-up company has fallen to former Live Nation rather than Ticketmaster executives. Live Nation, as you may remember, was in the process of launching its own ticketing agency before merging with Ticketmaster.
All of which, some reckon, has pissed off Diller somewhat, who reportedly increasingly sees the Live Nation/Ticketmaster merger of having been, in reality, a Live Nation takeover of his ticketing firm. Some have also noted that while Diller played a key role in placating Ticketmaster investors during the Live Nation merger, he was nowhere to be seen when investment types recently got all stressed about the slump in the US live sector.
It’s thought Azoff will become Chairman when Diller departs.
