LOS ANGELES, March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Live Nation President
and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rapino announced today that the company
has reached an agreement in principle to enter into a 12-year global
contractual relationship with U2, who will join the company's Live Nation
Artists roster.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080331/LAM091)
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070220/LATU096LOGO)
"U2 has created some of the greatest rock music of all time and their
career has been uniquely successful," said Michael Cohl, Chairman of the
Board of Live Nation and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation Artists.
"It has long been our intention to consolidate and extend our relationship
with U2, so this is a very exciting deal for us. The band has always been
forward thinking and as one of our original and most successful artists, we
are delighted to be able to work with them for many years into the future."
Acknowledged as one of the best live acts in the world, U2 has played
to millions around the world on their ground-breaking tours. Their eleven
studio albums have garnered 22 Grammy Awards and sold in excess of 140
million copies globally. Through this new association U2 and Live Nation
Artists will collaborate on a variety of the band's global music
enterprises including touring, merchandising, and the band's website,
U2.com.
"We've been dating for over 20 years now, it's about time we tied the
knot," said U2's Bono. "With regards to U2.com, we feel we've got a great
website, but we want to make it a lot better. We want a closer, more direct
relationship between the band and its audience and Live Nation has pledged
to help us with that."
Arthur Fogel, Chairman of Live Nation's Global Music Division and Chief
Executive Officer of Global Touring, who has produced every U2 tour since
PopMart in 1997, said, "Our long relationship with U2 has endured and
flourished over the years. This is an opportunity to move forward with them
while building on the past, utilizing our unparalleled global marketing
platform to expand U2's universe into the future."
Paul McGuinness, U2's Manager said, "U2 are doing their best work right
now, on record and in concert. The opportunity to integrate U2 and Live
Nation's vision of the future is a great extension of our established
business and of our working relationship with Arthur Fogel and Michael
Cohl, which started back in 1980 at the El Mocambo in Toronto."
By expanding the scope of its activities with touring artists, Live
Nation Artists unlocks value to increase economic benefits to artists
through the creation of innovative new products, and delivery and
distribution channels for music and other content. Operating within this
new model, Live Nation Artists serves more than 1,000 artists through its
array of services, including global touring, merchandise and licensing
(Signatures Network, Anthill, TRUNK, Ltd.), sponsorship and strategic
alliances, recorded music, studios, media rights, digital rights, fan
club/websites (UltraStar, Musictoday), marketing and creative services
(Tour Design) to facilitate direct artist to fan connection.
U2's longstanding relationship with Universal Music for recording and
also publishing is not affected by the Live Nation deal. The deal is
subject to the completion of documentation and is expected to be finalized
in the coming months.
ABOUT LIVE NATION:
Live Nation is the future of the music business. With the most live
concerts, music venues and festivals in the world and the most
comprehensive concert search engine on the web, Live Nation is
revolutionizing the music industry: onstage and online. Headquartered in
Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock
Exchange, trading under the symbol "LYV." Additional information about the
company can be found at http://www.livenation.com under the "About Us"
section.
|
