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Ticketmaster’s President Is Expected to Be Ousted by Live Nation

August 12, 2013 by

While the company has not announced its plans yet, Mr. Hubbard is expected to be out as early as this week, according to these people, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because the plans were private. A spokeswoman for Live Nation declined to comment, and Mr. Hubbard did not return an e-mail on Monday night.

The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The reason for Mr. Hubbard’s departure was not clear, but it appeared to be related to the company’s move toward a more technology-driven model for Ticketmaster. Mr. Hubbard, 38, joined Live Nation in 2006 when it bought Musictoday, a fan club and merchandising company that had been founded by Coran Capshaw, the enterprising manager of the Dave Matthews Band. Mr. Hubbard had been the chief executive of Musictoday, and became the president of Live Nation’s ticketing division in 2008 and the head of Ticketmaster once Live Nation merged with that company in 2010.

According to Live Nation filings, Mr. Hubbard earned $1.5 million in total compensation in 2012, and $4.1 million in 2011. Last month, Billboard magazine named Mr. Hubbard one of its “40 Under 40” most powerful young executives in the music business.

Mr. Hubbard made himself the public face of Ticketmaster, embracing the challenge of turning around the brand’s negative image among consumers, who frequently blame it for the high surcharges and other headaches related to buying concert and sporting tickets. A former singer and songwriter, Mr. Hubbard stated in many interviews that his goal was to make Ticketmaster more “fan friendly.”

But Live Nation has also pushed to integrate Ticketmaster into the lucrative secondary ticketing market, which allows the company to reap additional fees every time a ticket is resold. The company has also expanded its technology to detect and deter scalpers who use automated computer programs, called bots, to take the best seats in Ticketmaster’s system for themselves, an effort that has been embraced by Michael Rapino, Live Nation’s chief executive.

The first public sign of a weakening of Mr. Hubbard’s power came in May, when Ticketmaster named Jared Smith the president of Ticketmaster North America.

The departure of Mr. Hubbard would further solidify control of the company under Mr. Rapino, after the departure of Irving Azoff, its former executive chairman, at the end of last year.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/business/media/ticketmasters-president-is-expected-to-be-ousted-by-live-nation.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Media Decoder Blog: WPP to Invest in SFX Entertainment

March 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

When the media mogul Robert F.X. Sillerman returned to the music business last year after more than a decade, he said he wanted to use online media to unite the huge but disconnected audience for electronic dance music. One aspect of his plan involves the role of marketing and advertising, as evidenced by a new investment from the ad giant, WPP.

WPP, a $20 billion company with major agencies like JWT, Grey and Young Rubicam under its umbrella, will invest an estimated $10 million in Mr. Sillerman’s company, SFX Entertainment.

Mr. Sillerman has said that he plans to build a $1 billion empire largely around the appeal of dance music, and his acquisitions so far have included festival promoters, nightclubs and a music download store, Beatport. WPP’s involvement, he said, could help attract sponsors to those properties.

WPP “recognizes the power of dance music to coalesce and address an increasingly difficult-to-reach audience,” Mr. Sillerman said in an interview. “Clearly their endorsement to the overall marketing community, and in particular to their clients, provides a jump start to fascinating sponsorship and marketing opportunities.”

Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of WPP, said that the SFX investment was a smaller one for his company; he compared it to WPP’s investments in Vice, the Weinstein Company and others.

“These are areas of content that we think are interesting to the younger age groups, particularly in digital, which are the age groups of interest to our clients,” Mr. Sorrell said.

The investment is expected to be disclosed on Monday.

In the 1990s, Mr. Sillerman, through an earlier incarnation of SFX, spent $1.2 billion acquiring dozens of regional rock promoters, establishing a national network to attract corporate sponsors. Those assets, sold to Clear Channel Communications in 2000 for $4.4 billion, now form the basis of the concert division of Live Nation Entertainment, where sponsorship represents more than a third of the company’s adjusted operating income.

Exactly what form sponsorship might take at SFX’s events was unclear. The dance world has largely been run independently, with minimal corporate branding, and that ethos persists even as the genre has become big business. Furthermore, Mr. Sillerman said, the classic model of celebrity endorsement is old-fashioned, necessitating more subtle forms of marketing.

“The days of Yogi Berra holding up a can of Yoo-Hoo are long gone,” he said. “Association with those forms of entertainment that people love is a much more powerful endorsement than a direct one.”

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/wpp-invests-in-sfx-entertainment/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Media Decoder Blog: Irving Azoff to Leave Live Nation

December 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Irving Azoff, the executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the concert and ticketing giant, is leaving the company, Live Nation announced on Monday.

As part of his exit, Liberty Media, already one of Live Nation’s largest shareholders, will buy 1.7 million of Mr. Azoff’s shares, giving Liberty a 26.4 percent stake in Live Nation. According to recently filed corporate disclosure documents, Mr. Azoff controlled about 2.6 million shares in Live Nation, either directly or through a family trust.

Mr. Azoff, 65, has been one of the most powerful executives and artist managers in music for four decades, and Live Nation has been only his most recent endeavor. Along with Michael Rapino, who remains the company’s chief executive, Mr. Azoff helped organize the merger in early 2010 of Live Nation — then largely a concert promotions company — and Ticketmaster, which also included Mr. Azoff’s Front Line management business.

Live Nation will continue to own Front Line, but Mr. Azoff will take some of his longtime management clients with him, including the Eagles, Christina Aguilera, Van Halen and Steely Dan. Mr. Azoff said that leaving would relieve him of what he described as burdensome corporate duties, and let him work again in his preferred mode as an entrepreneur.

“It’s no secret that I haven’t been a fan of public companies for some time,” Mr. Azoff said by phone from Mexico, where he was spending the holidays. “I looked at my calendar for the beginning of next year and I was able to clear 90 days for things that went into dealing with a public company, which I can now devote to productive work.”

He cited “taxes and estate planning” as the reasons for leaving on the last day of the year.

Mr. Azoff will join the board of Starz, the cable television company also owned by Liberty Media. Mr. Azoff also serves on the boards of Clear Channel Communications and the media and entertainment company IMG.

Live Nation announced Mr. Azoff’s departure after the market closed on Monday, but news of it was first reported by Bloomberg News before the end of the trading day. Live Nation’s stock closed at $9.31, up about 3.7 percent for the day.

Live Nation did not announce who would be taking over as chairman in Mr. Azoff’s absence.

In addition to its holdings in Live Nation, Liberty has a major stake in Sirius XM Radio, and has spent the last several months in the process of taking that company over. But when asked whether he might take over from the recently departed Mel Karmazin as chief executive of Sirius, Mr. Azoff scoffed.

“I’m never going to work for a public company again,” he said. “Any public company.”

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/irving-azoff-to-leave-live-nation/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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