Damn - I had drawn 'consumer-facing synergetic value release' in the sweepstake

Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff can't contain his excitement at the new, merged Live Nation-Ticketmaster hybrid:

"This merger will create a pipeline for all rights holders to reach their consumers, whether it is our team, an artist or a record company.

It is time that our business delivered forward thinking marketing solutions and we intend to do just that."

Let's just hope when they put tickets for forward thinking marketing pipelines on sale, they don't screw up, tell people they're sold out and try and offer them the same thing with a seventy-thousand per cent mark-up, eh?

Still, let's be fair - the man is honest. He didn't create a piece of meaningless, impenetrable marketing crapola to try and pretend there's anything in it for the consumers.

To be really fair, I should point out that Azoff wasn't using a clunking metaphor when he spoke of a pipeline; LiveNation Ticketmaster Don't Mention Ticketmaster are actually developing a pipeline to deliver musicians to customers. Early tests have been a bit buggy; the beta service was suspended when Jordan Knight was delivered at a dangerously high pressure and took out two family homes and a small dairy in Missouri.