This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka. That's me. It's powered by digital media. This episode is brought to you by SOFI. Refinancing student loans with SOFI saves an average of $19,000. Members also get access to free career services and coaching. Find out more at SOFI.com. Terms and conditions apply at SOFi.com slash legal. Today's show is also brought to you by Mac Weldon, and I've been talking to you about Mac Weldon for so long. I'd no longer need to read sponsor a copy anymore. I can just tell you, Michael Rapino, that Mac Weldon makes awesome. Hoodies, sweatshirt, underwear, socks. I'm wearing the socks right now. Can you tell how comfortable there? They are. I can see it in you. You can see the comfort radiating over my body. They're made of

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Yeah. code recode in macwellton.com offer code recode. Michael Rapino, you're in the concert business, but you're really in the ad business, right? Yeah, we're... So how was that? It's a professional ad guy. Rate my performance there. You got a voice in radio. Yeah, I got a face for radio. Yeah, yeah. Michael Rapino, you run Live Nation, which means you run the concert and live event business in this country,

and really most of the world. Am I summarizing your position correctly?

We are a global company. You're a global company, but basically, if you are going to a concert and if you're going to a live show of any sort, very good odds that your company is taking a cut

of whatever I spent there, either to buy a ticket,

Coca-Cola, whatever. You guys are probably participating in that. If it's not you, it's your

competitor, AEG. Am I summing up the landscape correctly? Yeah, I think in a global basis,

we're in 40 countries. So in 40 different countries around the world, 70 plus shows a day are happening under the live nation name.

So whether it's the concert we're producing, the venue, we at least own, manage, the artists we manage.

Buying a ticket master.

That's you.

Or the food and beverage would be part of our ecosystem.

So you're doing 70 shows a day, gazillion shows a year. When we hear this, we'll probably be well into the concert season. So if I'm going to go see who Drake this year, Beyonce, that's you, right? Yep. It's a good business to be in. It sounds like a good business to be in. Yes. The music business in general is contracting, has been contracting for a long time. One of the reasons I wanted to have you in here is because we've heard for years now as record sales, CD sales, a very antiquated term. Digital download sales all decline. One of the answers has always been, oh, these guys should just go make it up by going on tour. That's how artists are going to go make their money. Sounds easy. Probably is not so

easy, though, right? Right. Well, you know, I think it's a double edge. For the first,

you know, 30, 40 years, the business for an artist was to get a record deal. And the record deal

would have been a, you know, a huge advance. It would have been a big deal. And that paid your bills. And they gave you tour support. They played for your video. And you went on tour to promote your album. You went on tour to promote your album. And the quality of the show was minimal, right? You know, spotlights were minimal. A few trucks, great performance, but it wasn't a visual experience it is today.

And the economics didn't make it that.

And then obviously as Napster and others started to happen in the digital download era,

the record revenue started to decline dramatically at the exact same time.

You know, we always think it's somewhere in the Stone's era about 1990 steel

wheels where that tour started to become a real spectacle. Spectacle with price tags to match.

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