Washington -- U.S. Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee, held a hearing on the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger on February 24, 2009.  Today he issued the following statement regarding the Justice Department’s decision:

“Our investigation into the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger led us to serious concerns about whether the deal would mean higher prices for concert tickets and effectively shut out concert promotion and ticketing competitors.  While we still have those concerns, we are hopeful that the Justice Department’s conditions on the merger will achieve our goal of preserving genuine competition, and we’ll stay involved to make sure that the Justice Department strictly enforces their terms of this settlement to ensure that consumers truly benefit.”