News

Ticketmaster Considers Digital Music Plan

Now that Irving Azoff—the owner of Front Line Entertainment, "the most influential management agency in the world" according to Wired—is running Ticketmaster, the company is looking to expand into a one-stop shop for tickets, merch, music and more.

"The biggest misconception about this [Front Line] deal is that Ticketmaster in the future will be what it was in the past," Azoff explained to Billboard. "The new name of the company is Ticketmaster Entertainment, and it's a platform for us to build a lot of other things. The fortunes of this company aren't going to rise and fall just on the ticketing business. We're going to build the ability for people to distribute their music."

In other words, you may soon be able to bundle your tickets to Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Jewel or Steely Dan—all Azoff clients—with each artist's latest album. One pop star is happy about the plan. Speaking to Wired's Listening Post blog, they said, "I love to make new music, but I hate to play two or three new songs and have people get up and go to the bathroom. I want to give my music away to the people who buy tickets so they'll know the new songs when we play them. If they've spent $60 or $80 or $100 to buy a ticket and if I give them the music as part of that, I bet they'll bother to listen to it."

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
11.04.08