LIVE NATION's Irving Azoff Resigns as Chairman

Live Nation Entertainment Chairman Irving Azoff has resigned from his post, according to The New York Times. The executive has sold some of his stake in the concert promotion organization to Liberty Media Corp. The Business mogul is expected to start a new talent management agency.

Azoff recently spoke with Billboard.biz about the announcement. "There's no animosity between me and [CEO Michael] Rapino or anybody at the company whatsoever," maintains Azoff. "He was a great partner, no problems there, none of that."

He continues, "It was just the frustration with working at a public company. We had a board that was afraid to do things because of the Treasury, institutional shareholders, people writing you letters, everybody complaining about you and your people making too much money, you can't do this, you can't do that, everybody has to be on the same e-mail address. Sh-- like that just drove me crazy."

Asked what his future role with the company will be, he explains, "I am going to remain a manager, although not to the scale that I was. I'm going to look to do other things in the business. I love the representation business, I'd like to maybe expand that beyond just music."

Looking back on his experience with Live Nation, Azoff has no regrets and is proud of his accomplishments. "The highlight was getting the [Ticketmaster/Live Nation] merger done. And, by the way, Ticketmaster's renewal rate is incredible," he comments. "Ticketmaster has done unbelievably well since the merger and I'm real proud of that."

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