Pop Idol creator, Spice Girls manager and pop music Svengali Simon Fuller has, to date, sold 160 million tunes on Apple's iTunes music service.
This iTunes milestone is down to 19 Entertainment's successful roster of popular recording artists including American Idol winners Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, alongside Annie Lennox and The Spice Girls.
Digital music growth
IFPI recently noted that physical sales of music fell by 12.7 percent globally in 2009, with the drop offset by a 9.2 percent growth in the digital downloads market, which is now worth $4.3 billion.
Following the announcement of Fuller's latest iTunes sales total, Billboard's Fred Bronson claimed that Fuller is "without question the biggest manager of the digital age."
TV and iTunes synergy
"I felt there was a real synergy with what I do, which is launching new artists and TV shows, and what iTunes does, which is to sell music in an immediate and interactive way," Fuller told Reuters.
"The future is all about how the digital and the physical worlds can co-exist. I think music in the long term is going to be just fine.
"But in the short term, as we see, (it's) bedlam and chaos. We have to reinvent, in music, TV and movies, that interaction between the consumer and the content we create."
Universal Music Group International chairman Lucian Grainge added: "Today's digital platforms for selling music and reaching consumers worldwide means, quite simply, that the future belongs to people like Simon."
Via Reuters
