Congress vs. Ticketmaster

As the nation’s largest ticket seller and largest concert promoter hope to merge before year’s end, more and more members of Congress are growing skeptical over the proposed deal.

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s anti-trust panel, said Monday that a merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation would create a ticketing behemoth threatening to squash smaller competitors and hike costs to consumers. In a letter, Kohl urged the Justice Department to examine the proposal closely to ensure those trends wouldn’t result. The Wisconsin Democrat said Justice should “only approve the merger should it determine that the transaction is unlikely to lead to higher prices for consumers, and is unlikely to cause any substantial lessening of competition in any aspect of the concert business.”

Given the already high market share possessed by Ticketmaster in the ticketing business and consumer complaints of high ticketing fees, special care must be taken to ensure that this merger does not create undue barriers to entry for competitors in the ticketing marketplace.

A similar letter from 50 House members went out to the Justice Department yesterday as well.

Whether Congress has more luck than Pearl Jam taking on Ticketmaster has yet to be seen.