Live Nation Celebrates after Big Champagne Buy

Ticketmaster's parent firm Live Nation Entertainment has acquired Los Angeles-based online digital media measurement company Big Champagne, which specializes in analysing how consumers use and pay for music. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded in 2001, Big Champagne collects and analyses online and off-line data about popular entertainment, and has been described by WIRED magazine as the 'Nielsen ratings' for online music. Its data covers airplay, sales, streams, downloads, views, mindshare, fan interactions and social connections to provide insights into the '360 degree' relationship between artists and their fans.

As part of the deal, Big Champagne's own products - including its Ultimate Chart and Ultimate Awards analytics tools - and services will be expanded to incorporate access to live event data, ticketing and merchandising, direct-to-fan and other data sets.

The firm will join Live Nation's Live Analytics group, through which it will introduce business intelligence solutions for entertainment businesses, brands and lifestyle marketers.

Live Nation Entertainment will retain the 26-strong Big Champagne team, while founder Eric Garland becomes General Manager of LiveNation.com, and co-founder Joe Fleischer takes up the role of SVP of Content & Product Strategy for LiveNation.com.

Michael Rapino, CEO of Live Nation Entertainment, said: 'This acquisition strengthens our commitment to be the leader in artist to fan data. Big Champagne's expertise will accelerate our mission to drive deeper fan engagement throughout Live Nation driven by world class data technology.'

Web sites: www.livenation.com and www.bigchampagne.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.