Miley Cyrus & papa Billy Ray infuse ratings on “Dancing With the Stars” amid Ticketmaster controversy

By Stacey Silberman

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 10/9/07 – Hannah Montana, aka Miley Cyrus, dances her way from Disney cable to NBC tonight. The music-TV crossover sensation will perform a duet with dad Billy Ray Cyrus on “Dancing With the Stars” with soulful rocker Seal also scheduled to perform.

And with all that star-power, they might not even win the timeslot. Against them on Fox is Hugh Laurie, whose “House” is usually the most watched show on Tuesdays.

Only ratings will tell whether the current pop teen icon Miley can put the squeeze on Fox.

In other news, Disney’s hugely popular Hannah Montana star, has spurred a public outcry over the fan’s inability to buy concert tickets directly from Ticketmaster. Attorney generals in Arkansas, Missouri and Pennsylvania have taken action to find out why excessively expensive ticket resellers have the majority of the tickets.

Next week Ticketmaster will seek a preliminary injunction in a Los Angeles Federal District Court to halt RMG Technologies from entering the Ticketmaster system through automated ticket programs. The ticket selling giant believes RMG is somehow allowing resellers unauthorized repeat access to Ticketmaster.com through a proxy server that pushes these aggressive buyers to the front of the digital line.

Billboard reported that Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon sued three ticket resellers last week who were charged with violating state consumer protection laws. Arkansas attorney generals Tom Corbett and Dustin McDaniel followed suit saying they were pursuing suspicious ticket resellers in their states.

What really pushed the issue is the fact the outcry from angry parents, faced with having to tell their children that they couldn’t get tickets, due to the high cost on the secondary market.

“You’re dealing with a mother/child dynamic her that can lead to a very upset child and a very angry mother, and that certainly exacerbates things, said Ticketmaster vice president and assistant general counsel Joe Freeman

Freeman said we are “doing everything we can to insure fair access to the public.” He also emphasized that Ticketmaster neither owns nor controls the tickets themselves, but is only the conduit for the electronic sale.