HYPEBOT’S MUSIC INDUSTRY WEEK IN REVIEW

• Global music industry trade group IFPI issued a report showing sales of 420 million paid downloads in 2005. That is more than double the level of downloads in 2004, and twenty times the volume in starter-year 2003. The sale of digital music was a $1.1 billion business worldwide or 6 percent of label revenues. Mobile music sales hit $400 million and  subscription services grew from 1.5 million to 2.8 million subscribers last year.
• Rumors of trouble and possible downsizing at Napster surfaced and were denied.  Little more may be known prior to a Feb 8 earnings report.
• Concert giant Live Nation (formerly Clear Channel) continues its post spin-off consolidation shuttering offices in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Virginia Beach, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Birmingham and Minneapolis and laying off a few more key staffers including former agent Joel Peresman in NYC.  Calls to local offices are now answered with "Live Nation" confirming the rumor that they are again dropping the use of their famous local promoter names (like Bill Graham Presents and Electric Factory) that were reinstated just months ago.
• Direct TV announced the launch of a new weekly live music spotlight show "CD USA".
• Sony BMG signed Chaka Kahn and Aaron Neville to a newly formed adult oriented label Burgundy based the the company’s special marketing division.
• Universal announced the addition of 100,000 rarer tracks to it’s digital downloads offerings as the number of tracks on some top download sites topped a dizzying 2 million choices.
• Apple had another record quarter including the sale of 14 million new iPods; and iTunes corrected a controversial feature that now allows users to opt-out of company monitoring of music sampling.