Someone Loses Big: Live Nation (LYV) Takes Madonna From Warner (WMG)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 10, 5:57PM EDT

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It appears that pop star Madonna is leaving Warner Music Group (WMG) for concert promoter Live Nation (LYV). The price tag is $120 million for 10 years. Live Nation will pay part in cash and part in stock, according to The Wall Street Journal. Under the arrangement, Live Nation will have" rights to sell three studio albums, promote concert tours, sell merchandise and license her name."

Some industry experts believe that each album would have to sell 15 million copies for LYV to get its money back. Lining up sponsors for events and tours could offset some of that.

WMG put on a brave face, but no one should be fooled. One large shareholder of Warner said he was fine with losing Madonna because the cost of keeping her may have been too high.

But, Warner should have gone the extra mile. There are only so many battles that the music company can afford to lose now. Its stock has fallen from $30 last June to under $10 late last month. The shares now change hands for $11.29.

The consumer move from CDs to music downloads is slowly killing Warner. It does not keep as much of a digital dollar as it does from a CD. And, each quarter a larger number of its customers move to platforms like the Apple (AAPL) iPod. Piracy has also eroded earnings.

Having a few big artists with enough star power to let Warner bring in money for sponsorships and merchandise will be critical to the company’s future. It can’t afford to let Madonna go no matter what it costs to keep her.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.