Ticketmaster's history of getting bought and sold
By our count, Ticketmaster's upcoming spinoff from IAC will be the seventh time Barry Diller has bought or sold a piece of the online-ticketing agency, starting from the first stake he acquired in it a decade ago. After the jump, a chronology of Diller's Ticketmaster deals.
- July 1997 Diller's company acquires 50 percent of Ticketmaster Group, from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen
- May 1998 Acquires remaining half of Ticketmaster from public shareholders
- September 1998 Ticketmaster Online merges with CitySearch, an online city guide
- December 1998Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch (TMCS) completes IPO
- January 2001 Ticketmaster merges with TMCS
- January 2003 Diller buys remainder of Ticketmaster
- November 2007 Diller announces Ticketmaster spinoff