Live Nation to buy C3?

The New York Times ran a story on Monday saying that Live Nation is "in advanced talks to buy a majority stake in C3 Presents," who is the promoter for the ACL Festival.

As first blush, this seems like a bad thing.  McDonald's taking over Torchy's or Wal-Mart buying out Franklin BBQ.  Live Nation has swallowed up a ton of different aspects of the music business, owns the extremely unpleasant Ticketmaster fee machine, and has taken some cool, iconic venues like the Fillmore in San Francisco and turned them into derivative chains.  

Can we expect new Stubb's venues to pop up across the country and dilute the cool of what we have here in Austin?  Will they sign a new 360 degree contract with Jay-Z that puts Beyonce's tail on every bottle of Stubb's sauce?  Will they increase ACL wristband prices with a $9.50 convenience fee, $12.50 order processing fee, $22.50 microchipped wristband fee, $18.99 Zilker Park grass seeding fee, $7.50 sound ordinance abatement fee, and a $1 screw you fee?  Will they take over booking for ACL and make us watch even more jenky EDM music?  

I have no clue, but I think I am going to feel positive about this thing.  Maybe they'll bring a House of Blues to town, which are actually pretty good venues even if they are a homogeneous chain.  Maybe they'll bring some of their exclusive, top artists to town, like Jay-Z, Madonna, or U2, for the festival. Maybe they'll merge Ticketmaster with Front Gate Tickets and the feds will force them to be nicer and quit charging stupid fees on top of crazy ticket prices.  So long as they keep the smart brains who have been making ACL Fest so kick ass for the past decade, I'll probably give them a pass for just about anything they do.