Weekly download sales may top a million for the first time this week, meaning downloaders will have a considerable impact on what track gets that strangely coveted Christmas number one spot. Weekly download sales now regularly top 650,000, but a pre-Xmas sales boost may take that over the million mark, especially given that the debut single from X-Factor winner Shayne Ward was available to download as of yesterday, while the CD single release won't be in shops until tomorrow.
Ward's track, 'That's My Goal', remains the bookies favourite to get the Christmas number one. As the odds on Ward dropped from 1/7 to 1/9, a spokesman for William Hill told reporters yesterday: "Even at these odds we are still taking weighty bets on Shayne and it now looks like a certainty that he will have the Christmas number one. If it carries on like this we might even close the betting."