TM Profit Predicted

Ticketmaster Entertainment is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

OVERVIEW: West Hollywood-based Ticketmaster faced grilling by politicians and musicians over fears it would have a near monopoly over major U.S. concert ticket sales after announcing its proposed merger with Live Nation in February.

During one hearing, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urged Ticketmaster to sell off its ticket-reselling Web site, TicketsNow, after thousands of Bruce Springsteen fans complained they were redirected there to buy marked-up tickets, when cheaper face-value tickets were still available on Ticketmaster.com.

The company also settled an investigation by New Jersey’s attorney general by agreeing to sever online links between TicketsNow and Ticketmaster for a year.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation expect their merger to be approved by the U.S. Justice Department by the second half of the year.

Ticketmaster may see some negative impact from Live Nation launching its own ticketing platform in January.

Live Nation said Thursday it had sold 4.2 million tickets on the platform so far. The platform was launched after Live Nation ended its deal to sell tickets through Ticketmaster.

The end of that agreement looked to cut into at least 15 percent of Ticketmaster’s revenue and force the companies to compete for ticketing contracts.

Live Nation said its first-quarter North American concert attendance fell 23 percent to 4.2 million while international attendance rose 17 percent to 3 million.

Live Nation said advance ticket sales for the summer season were strong and it was looking for ticket volumes to be flat in 2009 compared with last year.

BY THE NUMBERS: Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect first-quarter earnings of 17 cents per share on revenue of $347 million. Ticketmaster spun off from IAC/InterActiveCorp in August.

ANALYST TAKE: Gabelli & Co. analyst Brett Harriss said Live Nation’s outlook for flat ticket volumes in 2009 bodes well for Ticketmaster, especially in a recession.

“One of the big drags on the stock from a valuation perspective has been the fact that live entertainment is discretionary spending,” he said. “So far, it seems that the consumer hasn’t been willing to sacrifice his one or two live entertainment events a year.”

WHAT’S AHEAD: Ticketmaster must clear regulatory hurdles before it can benefit from its merger with Live Nation. The companies said the deal to create Live Nation Entertainment would help them save about $40 million annually.

STOCK PERFORMANCE: Shares fell 43 percent over the quarter, to $3.69 on March 31 from $6.42 on Dec. 31.