Ticketmaster To Merge With Live Nation

The country's biggest ticket seller and biggest concert promoter have been granted permission to merge and create a single company that will run pretty much every bit of your concert experience.

Once the merged is officially closed, the combined company will be called Live Nation Entertainment -- a combination that would have control of nearly all aspects of the music industry pipeline: artist and venue management, ticket and merchandise sales and more. Live Nation operates 75 U.S. music venues. In 2008, Ticketmaster sold more than 141 million tickets -- $8.9 billion worth. Under the terms of the proposed judgment -- filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. -- the companies have agreed to sell Ticketmaster's self-ticketing subsidiary, Paciolan, to Comcast-Spectacor, and to license its hosting technology to AEG Live –- a pair of concessions designed to keep the ticketing and promotions landscape competitive. According to Reuters, the merged company would also be “barred from retaliating against any venue owner that uses another company's ticketing or promotional services.”

Is anybody holding their breath that ticket prices won't go up?