in our Spotlight on Business Report tonight big changes could be coming to how we get our concert tickets in the future the justice department the District of Colombia and 28 States including New Jersey are suing Ticket Master and its parent company Live Nation for allegedly monopolizing the industry in a groundbreaking antitrust lawsuit filed today the companies are accused of abusing their dominance to harm fans Nationwide by jacking up prices and relying on illegal and anti-competitive practices the suit comes 14 years after the doj allowed Live Nation and Ticket Master to merge which consumer Advocates railed against at the time New Jersey attorney general Matt platkin signed on to the suit and joins me to talk about why attorney general Matt platkin thanks so much for joining me so this lawsuit alleges that this entertainment company has a monopoly how so specifically well first of all thank you for having me Brian uh Live Nation Ticket Master essentially has complete control over the concert and event promotion and ticketing process they have exclusive deals with the overwhelming number of venues throughout the Country Ticket Master is the only uh ticket agency that they can use to sell their tickets and we've SE we know the impact Americans pay the highest prices for tickets and the highest fees of any other country uh that looks like us and so their practices whether it be retaliating against competitors entering into these exclusive deals where you can only use Ticket Master um has resulted in serious harm to the residents of the state I don't want to assume but of course New Jersey is home to some pretty prominent venues we also have proximity to other major cities is that why you and your office decided to sign on but we know that this is an issue that matters to Residents in our state we certainly saw it last summer when Taylor Swift fans couldn't get on uh and purchase their tickets or or resellers were able to manipulate the system and people paid extraordinary fees spring steam fans in New Jersey obviously had to deal with the same issues and we know we're paying extremely high prices again for shows that cost much less in other countries where they don't have this live Ticket Master Monopoly and so we always look uh whenever there's an opportunity to use our antitrust enforcement authority to benefit the residents of the state and this is yet another example of that was it those more major I'll call them incidents that spurred this because I mean back in 2010 when the doj reached a consent decree allowing this to happen and and I can remember covering the merger there were Anti-Trust folks who were waving flags saying that this was going to happen then 14 years years ago there were and a number of States including New Jersey uh objected and we now uh I wasn't here at the time but as part of that consent uh that they entered into they had to meet certain conditions and now what we're seeing is that they have not lived up to their end of the bargain and as doj said very clearly today it's time to break up Live Nation and Ticket Master which is one of the things we are requesting of course uh Live Nation Ticket Master they're rejecting um these accusations this could likely take years to play out in court but what changes if any could this lead to for Ticket buyers I think the biggest thing is it could lead to lower ticket costs and easier access to tickets which would be a good thing for all concert goers it would be a good thing for our economy and it would be good thing for the artists in other countries you see the artists and their fans are align they want to sell they don't want to sell their tickets for the highest possible fee because that's taken master in live nation's business model they want to make sure that it's available and there's competition to keep the market in check when you have no competition it gives Ticket Master the ability to charge fees that literally no other country in the world sees and that's what we're dealing with here and all we're talking about is making sure that people who earn their money save their money and are di hard swifties or Springsteen fans can go to their concerts and not have to be charge fees that no one else is paying uh and that's really what this case is all about attorney general Matt platkin joining us thank you so much thank you for having me [Music]