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Internet traffic doubles every 100 days, according to some statistics. This growth has been accompanied by an increase in the amount of online shopping---a phenomenon that has had a significant impact on retailers. Independent bookstores, for example, have been squeezed not only by the expansion of large-scale operations like Barnes">http://www.barnesandnoble.com/">Barnes & Noble, but also by the popularity of Internet discounters like Amazon.comhttp://www.amazon.com/">Amazon.com; and Borders.comhttp://www.borders.com/">Borders.com;. Online sales of recorded music by both record clubs and start-up resellers have put a dent in the bottom lines of many mass-market music stores---although not a huge one yet. The trend will certainly continue.

Warner Music Group may have just announced its first DVD-Audio titles (see related">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10861/">related story), but an upstart independent label is claiming the first DVD-A discs actually available for sale. In an attempt to establish itself as the leader in the new DVD-Audio format, 5.1 Entertainment Group's Silverline">http://www.silverlinerecords.com/">Silverline Records says it has begun shipping the first commercially available 24-bit/96kHz DVD-Audio disc, Swingin' for the Fences, by Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band.

Good Morning America: The war for listeners between XM Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio has seen MLB go to one broadcaster (XM) and Howard Stern to the other. On June 21, Sirius announced an agreement that will put the BBC's popular Radio 1 on a time-shifted broadcast schedule. The time-shift will enable American listeners to hear Radio 1's broadcast day "as it was intended—with Chris Moyles' Breakfast Show in the morning, Scott Mills' show in the afternoon, and kicking off the weekend with Pete Tong's Friday night Essential Selection," according to a press release.

The entertainment industry's worst worry—copyright infringement—just got a lot worse. A consortium of 12 major high-technology companies has been organized to promote a rewritable DVD technology developed by the Pioneer Electronics Corporation, according to a May 9 press release from Tokyo.

One might assume that the mutually dependent businesses of electronics manufacturing and retailing would track each other in perfect unison. That's often true, but they can sometimes get wildly out of sync with each other. It's one of the great economic mysteries.

Music sales in the US continue to decline, according to a May 8 report from the National">http://www.narm.com">National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM). Retails sales totaled $8.93 billion in 2002, down from the $10.46 billion reported for 2000. Most (87%) of the organization's members reported a drop in music sales last year—only 13% posted higher totals.

Satellite radio services appear to be gaining sufficient market momentum to get them over the startup hump.