When you buy a ticket to see Alice Cooper, Beyoncé, or Burna Boy on a Live Nation stage, chances are John Malone is somewhere in the background. The 84-year-old “cable cowboy” holds a 30% stake in the world’s largest concert promoter through Liberty Media — and that piece of his empire is about to move center stage.
According to a new Financial Times interview, Liberty Media is preparing to spin off its Live Nation holdings into a separate company this fall. That restructuring would leave Liberty focused on motorsports (Formula 1, MotoGP) and make it easier for Malone to pursue fresh deals in music, sports, and live entertainment.
The move underscores Malone’s long-standing influence on how live music is consumed. He helped build the broadband backbone that made streaming possible, and now he sits on one of the biggest live-event pipelines in the world. With consolidation pressure mounting across the media and tech landscape, the question is less whether Live Nation stays dominant, but who it might merge with next.
Consolidation on the Horizon
Malone predicts a fresh wave of mergers in entertainment — with legacy media companies like Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, and NBCUniversal all possible partners. But the music angle is just as critical: as big tech platforms outbid everyone for sports rights, concert promotion remains one of the few reliably growing, cash-generating businesses.
For artists, that means even more leverage for Live Nation when it comes to touring, festival bookings, and sponsorship tie-ins. For fans, it could signal higher ticket prices if competition thins out further according to people close to the matter.
Warner, Fox, and the Ones That Got Away
The FT piece also revealed that Malone held serious talks last summer with Rupert Murdoch about merging Warner Bros Discovery with Fox. The stumbling block? The impossibility of housing CNN and Fox News under one roof. Still, Malone, Murdoch, Warner CEO David Zaslav, and News Corp chair Lachlan Murdoch were all at the table.
While that deal collapsed, Malone backs a plan to split Warner Bros Discovery into two companies — one focused on film and streaming (HBO, Warner Bros. studios) and another on cable networks. He argues the separation will give Warner a “clean shot” at competing with Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video.
A Career of Mergers — and More to Come
From building TCI into a cable giant to selling it to AT&T for $48 billion in 1999, Malone has always had what he calls an “urge to merge.” His forthcoming autobiography Born to be Wired recounts that journey, while also making clear he’s not finished. Formula 1, Live Nation, and potential tie-ups with Ari Emanuel’s TKO (UFC + WWE) are all on the horizon.
Malone insists he’ll give away most of his $10 billion fortune to philanthropic causes. But before that, the godfather of cable still wants to shape the next chapter of live music, sports, and streaming.
