Only a week earlier, last year’s X-Factor winner Leona Lewis had broken the record for the UK’s fastest-selling track download; now Saturday night’s winner Alexandra Burke has smashed her forebear’s record, becoming Europe’s quickest-ever selling digital track.
While Lewis shifted 133,591 downloads in a week last week, and still sits at number one, Burke’s Hallelujah cover has sold 105,000 downloads since going online following Burke’s victory at midnight on Saturday. The CD doesn’t even hit shelves until Wednesday, but Burke has already secured next week’s number one spot by a country mile on digital alone. Several online music retailers have the Burke cabal to thank for a pre-Christmas boost today – AlexandraBurke.com (yes, it’s already up) links especially to iTunes, 7Digital, PlayDigital, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Music Store, Tesco Digital, HMV (LSE: HMV) and Amazon.
That’s the kind of guaranteed spend the music industry gets from its dependence on the following that comes from a primetime ITV (LSE: ITV) super-show. The numbers are staggering, but perhaps predictable – the certainty with which Burke would win the contest gave and X-Factor’s template for Christmas success gave a top-up to what were already growing digital music sales.