In a Nutshell: Irving Azoff's regional monopoly
Before Live Nation-Ticketmaster Irving monopolized the Midwest
This is Part 2 in the chronicle of Irving Azoff. Here you can read Part 1 & Part 2.
It is clear that from the beginning of Irving Azoff’s career he was able to quickly connect to power players in the music industry. These relationships include the leading Chicago disc jockey Art Roberts and the Godfather of the Music Industry Morris Levy. The genesis of these connections is still a topic for investigation, but it is clear that Azoff was a nonstop hustler.
Azoff graduated high school in Danville, IL in 1966 and moved thirty miles west to attend the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was soon working at Blytham Limited, which was a booking agency that dominated the rock music touring circuit south of Chicago and across the Midwest.
The Perennial Problem in the Music Industry
Blytham is often remembered as a local monopoly that used strong-arm tactics to corner the market. This is a harbinger of the monopoly to come for Azoff’s fusion of Ticketmaster and Live Nation in 2010. As this series progresses we will continue to explore how Azoff was able to write the rules of the musical-industrial complex.
Monopoly and Payola
In my very reductive assessment the are two main pillars of the music industry: monopoly and familiarity.
There are two types of monopoly:
vertical integration: controlling the supply chain (e.g. record labels, venues, talent management)
horizontal integration: controlling the majority of the market share.
Familiarity is the scientifically proven way to increase the odds a song is a hit, both by it sounding familiar and through repeatedly hearing the song.1 Thus, a surefire method to make a hit song is using payola AKA “pay to play”. Having a music monopoly has a symbiotic relationship with establishing familiarity with a song and securing a hit.
Ever notice in the game monopoly we know exactly who will win long before the game is over?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Mx.’s Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.