Bad news for big labels: Ticketmaster wants their jobs

Following on from LiveNation's tentative steps to move from promotion into fully servicing musician's careers, Ticketmaster has announced plans that also would eat into the point of standalone record labels:

"The biggest misconception about this [Front Line management takeover] deal is that Ticketmaster in the future will be what it was in the past," recently minted Ticketmaster head Irving Azoff told 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."

Not quite moving into the label business - as yet - but a major artist looking to avoid giving large chunks of cash to the EMIs of this planet might find the idea of getting a company to handle flogging downloads alongside the more lucrative selling of tickets an attractive one. If I ran a major, I think I'd be thinking if the future might involve bringing my catalogue into a company like Ticketmaster or LiveNation now, rather than waiting until my stock was so low they could snap it up for a pittance.