WEB SUCCESS:
In Sales and Advertising
Ticketmaster Group Inc.’s [NASDAQ:TKTM] foray into the world of electronic
commerce is paying off big-time for the company in terms of revenues. The computerized
ticket service, which used to depend on telephone sales, said its Internet-based ticket
sales almost quadrupled in the first quarter, as compared to the year ago quarter.
In this year’s first quarter, Ticketmaster Online sold 522,926 tickets via the
Net, which totaled revenues of $19.5 million. This year’s first quarter sales from
the Internet represented about three percent of Ticketmaster’s total domestic
business. A year ago during the first quarter Ticketmaster sold 153,344 tickets worth $5.3
million , representing one percent of its total domestic business.
The Ticketmaster Online site receives more than 3 million visits per month, with an
average of nearly 100,000 visits per day, based on third party audit reports for the month
of March, company officials said. Jupiter Communications ranked Ticketmaster the
thirteenth most trafficked electronic commerce Web site for the month of March,
Ticketmaster officials also said.
The growth the company has seen in Internet sales should "only continue as the
Internet’s audience expands," Ticketmaster officials believe. The company sees
its business expanding worldwide, too. So it put the "world wide" in World Wide
Web by completing transactional Web sites for its United Kingdom division and its partner
in Mexico.
All of this comes after Ticketmaster announced an agreement with Net-based music
retailer N2K, where N2K will pay Ticketmaster $12 million to exclusively sell music on
Ticketmaster Online.
Ticketmaster Online is at http://www.ticketmaster.com.
The Mercury Center online news service is marking its fifth anniversary online with the
lifting of all subscription charges. The company is pledging to continue providing the
same service, but for no charge.
In a message to subscribers, Bob Ryan, director of the Mercury Center said, "As
we’ve grown, we’ve developed new revenue through advertising and other online
products, such as NewsHound and the NewsLibrary, which still charge modest fees. This has
enabled us to end subscription fees without compromising our commitment to providing the
best content and capabilities on the Web."
It also announced that subscribers who have an Infinet access package bundled with
Mercury Center subscription will see monthly prices fall from $19.95 to $9.95 for ten
hours of access time.
The Mercury Center home page is http://www.mercurycenter.com.
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