More on Live8

Here's a look at increases in CD sales by Live8 artists in the UK. Note how 70% of these are Greatest Hits collections.

1 Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd - 1343%
2 The Who - Then and Now - 863%
3 Annie Lennox - Eurythmics Greatest Hits - 500%
4 Dido - Life For Rent - 412%
5 Razorlight - Up All Night - 335%
6 Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits - 320%
7 Joss Stone - Mind, Body and Soul - 309%
8 Sting - The Very Best of Sting & The Police - 300%
9 Travis - Singles - 268%
10 Madonna - Immaculate Collection - 200%

Pete Townshend was quoted as saying "Our sales went up 832 per cent over the weekend - that's because we sold one record on Saturday and 832 since."

Now, I'm no mathematician, but...

The Times Online reports how EMI won the bidding war for the DVD release, partially by paying a large upfront to cover the costs of the concerts.

A friend of mine speculated that the organizers of Live Aid are still kicking themselves for broadcasting the whole concert, with very little interruption, because people had less reason to buy a video/DVD copy of it - they had already seen the whole thing. Perhaps this is a factor in all the interruptions?

Just found an excellent article in The Buffalo News that echoes the above-thought, and sums up Live8 better than any other article I've read so far.