Azoff Management to buy out MSG’s 50% interest for $125m

Walmart partners with MGM

LOS ANGELES, Oct 8, (RTRS): Azoff Music Management will acquire the Madison Square Garden Company’s 50 percent interest in Azoff MSG Entertainment for $125 million, the companies announced today. Once the transaction is complete, the company will be called The Azoff Company.

The two companies simultaneously announced that they have entered into multi-year consultancy agreements that will see the Azoff Company continuing to advise MSG on endeavors including the Forum and MSG Sphere initiative, which includes announced plans to build state-ofthe-art venues in Las Vegas and London.

The Azoff MSG Entertainment joint venture was officially established in 2013, although the pair had been working together since 2004. Its most prominent project has been the reestablishment of the 17,500-seat Forum as a major Los Angeles venue in direct competition with the similarly sized Staples Center.

Venue

The venue was purchased by AMSG in 2012 and underwent a $150 million renovation under the watch of Azoff’s wife Shelli, who managed the venue until December of last year, when she stepped down to become CMO of Azoff-MSG and handed over the dayto-day roles of managing the venue to GM Nick Spampanato.

The Forum and Staples have been at the center of a long-running turf war between their two parent companies that resulted in AEG’s recentlydropped block-booking policy, whereby many artists who wanted to play at London’s O2 Arena were prohibited from performing at The Forum; AEG claimed the policy was in response to a similar one between Madison Square Garden and The Forum. The policy was recently dropped in the wake of a lawsuit over it from Ozzy Osbourne.

“I am extremely proud that my partner, Jim Dolan, and I built an innovative company which always put the artists’ and songwriters’ interests first,” said Mr. Azoff, chairman and chief executive officer, The Azoff Company. “The Azoff Company will build on this foundation of positive disruption and artist advocacy: we will continue to challenge antiquated parts of the entertainment business on behalf of artists and fans. The Azoff Company is proud to renew our commitment to the Forum and MSG’s transformative vision for the best possible live entertainment experience.”

“Irving has been a valued business partner and we know that he will con-

tinue to enjoy incredible success in his company and in his continued role with us. This evolution of our relationship comes at a time when we are working to align all areas of our business to support our goal - the creation of next-generation venues that will transform the live experience,” said Jim Dolan, executive chairman and chief executive officer, The Madison Square Garden Company. “We will continue to rely on Irving’s relationships and expertise to help bring that vision to reality.”

In February 2018, MSG announced its plans for MSG Sphere, state-of-theart venues that are being built to pioneer the next generation of immersive experiences. The first MSG Sphere venue in Las Vegas, MSG Sphere at The Venetian, is expected to open during fiscal 2021, followed by a second MSG Sphere venue, to open approximately one year later in London.

Azoff Music Management will pay MSG $125 million for MSG’s 50 percent interest in the joint venture. Completion of the transaction remains subject to certain closing conditions, including financing. J.P. Morgan served as financial advisor to MSG and Centerview Partners served as financial advisor to Azoff Music Management.

Also:

NEW YORK: Walmart Inc said on Monday it will partner with US movie studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer to create content for its Vudu video-on-demand

service, which the retailer bought eight years ago.

Walmart has been trying to prop up Vudu’s monthly viewership that remains well below that of competitors like Netflix Inc and Hulu LLC, which is controlled by Walt Disney Co, Comcast Corp and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.

Media outlets have reported that Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart was looking to launch a subscription streaming video service to rival Netflix and make a foray into producing television shows to attract customers.

Target

But company sources have told Reuters that Walmart is not planning such a move and the company does not intend to spend billions of dollars on producing or acquiring exclusive content as of now. The retailer continues, however, to look at options to boost its video-on-demand business and offer programs that target customers who live outside of big cities.

Walmart and MGM will make the announcement at the NewFronts conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday and unveil the name of the first production under the partnership, which Walmart will license from MGM.

“Under this partnership, MGM will create exclusive content based on their extensive library of iconic IP (intellectual property), and that content will premiere exclusively on the Vudu platform,”

Walmart spokesman Justin Rushing told Reuters.

The focus will be on family-friendly content that Walmart customers prefer, Rushing said.

These shows will be exclusively licensed for a period of time to Vudu for North America, and available on Vudu’s free, ad-supported service Movies On Us. Vudu will also commission and license original shows from other sources.

The first MGM-produced shortform original series for Vudu is likely to debut in the first quarter of 2019 on Movies On Us.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Licensing content is a cost-effective strategy at a time when producing original content has become costly. As of July, Netflix said it was spending $8 billion a year on original and acquired content. Amazon.com Inc’s programming budget for Prime Video was more than $4 billion, while U.S. broadcaster HBO, owned by AT&T Inc, said it will spend $2.7 billion this year.

Walmart also plans to roll out a new video ad format for Movies On Us, which will allow viewers to make purchases from Walmart.com.

Walmart acquired Vudu in 2010 to safeguard against declining in-store sales of DVDs. Walmart bet customers would continue to buy and rent movies and move their titles to a digital library, which Vudu would create and maintain for viewers.