Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger: Azoff, Rapino and new speakers for House hearing

Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff and Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino will speak to the members of the House Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy Thursday morning, February 26, in what will be the second of two Congressional hearings on the proposed merger of their two companies.

The hearing is scheduled for 10am EST, and a webcast can be viewed by clicking here.

On Tuesday, February 24, Azoff and Rapino found themselves defending the proposed merger to members of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, where they were outnumbered 3-2 in speakers against the merger, and skeptical Senators. In fact, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, who publicly opposes the deal, urged Ticketmaster to sell its secondary ticketing operation TicketsNow, which has come under fire from recent class action lawsuits filed in Canada.

Other speakers joining Azoff and Rapino will be: Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-NJ, who called on the U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission to investigate the Ticketmaster/TicketsNow relationship after the snafu over their handling of the sale of Bruce Springsteen tickets; attorney Robert Doyle, Jr., partner in the firm Doyle, Barlow & Mazard, PLLC in Washington, DC; Peter Luukko, President and Chief Operations Officer of Comcast-Spectacor in Philadelphia, PA; Luke Froeb, William C. and Margaret W. Oehmig Associate Professor of Management, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN; and Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director U.S. PIRG, the Federation of Public Interest Research Groups, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-GA; Rep. Howard Coble, R-NC, is the Ranking Member.