Global music revenue fell 3 percent to $21 billion in 2005, with digital failing to make up for the dying CD format.

Per Reuters,

“Digital music sales nearly tripled to $1.1 billion from $400 million the year before, split evenly between online services and mobile phone downloads, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said in a report on Friday.”

So, where’s the good news?

Well, digital downloads nearly tripled. In Japan, digital is already making up for the decline of CDs, something that the States will start to do once everyone has a ‘Pod of one kind or another.

In other words, it’s Steve Jobs’ tune; we just hum along with it.

You know, having just read the EW interview with Howard Stern today, it was abundantly, endlessly clear that Stern was kidding when he said that he resented those fans who hadn’t yet bought a Sirius subscription.

Indeed, within the EW piece itself, Stern is even described as laughing as he says:

“I want to say to my audience in this article, ‘F— you! You haven’t come with me yet? How dare you?’ [Laughs] ‘We’re up to wild, crazy stuff, the show has never sounded better. You cheap bastard!’”

This should be filed under playful, good-natured ribbing.

What is the AP’s reaction?

A headline that says “Howard Stern Lashes Out at Some Fans,” and a story that omits the laughter, making it seem as thought Stern is a raving psychopath with a persecution complex.

See?

“It’s insulting to me that everyone hasn’t come with me. I take it personally,” he says. “I want to say to my audience … ‘You haven’t come with me yet? How dare you? We’re up to wild, crazy stuff, the show has never sounded better. You cheap bastard!’”

I mean, we know wire services are suppossed to play it straight, but this is beyond the pale; it’s a reality TV “Franken-edit” unbecoming a major news organization.

A year after it launched as the tonic that might grow green cash on the bald pate of Hollywood, Sony yesterday announced that the UMD, or Universal Media Disc may soon be usable only as a shiny coaster.

Yes, the Hollywood Reporter (free) and the Motley Fool (paid) both offer takes on why, but we’ll summarize for you in a single quote:

“No one’s watching movies on PSP,” said the president of one of the six major studios’ home entertainment divisions. “It’s a game player, period.”

We wish we could be all snarky and bloggeresque and say “Duh.” – but the truth is, it wasn’t such a bad idea. After all, iPod’s that play video are a roaring success. Why not make game players that do the same?

Of course, as it turned out, making a portable game console that also plays movies is a bit like making a crackpipe that’s also a salad shooter: Most crackheads just aren’t jonesing for Salade Nicoise.

- What the Knight Ridder sale means for newspapers and you.

- Our comrades at FishbowlNY actually go to parties attended by Angelenos; meanwhile nobody invites us anywhere.

No joke. Showtime and the Smithsonian will be launching a joint venture called the Smithsonian Network, which will draw upon the Institution’s vast collections and staff for documentary programming. The catch is that Showtime gets right of first refusal on the projects, and if you’re making a documentary for another network, you might not be able to have full access to the Smithsonian, which, after all, is a public institution. From the NYT:

Under the agreement, the Showtime-Smithsonian joint venture has the right of first refusal to commercial documentaries that rely heavily on Smithsonian collections or staff, said Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian. That means that a filmmaker who does not agree to grant Smithsonian Networks the rights to the film could be denied access to the Smithsonian’s public collections and experts, Ms. St. Thomas said.

“Our collections will continue to be open to researchers and makers of educational documentaries,” she said. In addition, programs that interview a Smithsonian curator as one of several experts on a broad topic like World War II would probably be allowed.

“But if you are doing a one-hour program on forensic anthropology and the history of human bones,” Ms. St. Thomas said, citing a subject on which the Smithsonian has extensive collections and leading experts, “that would be competing with ourselves, because that is the kind of program we will be doing with Showtime On Demand.”

Legal? I guess so. Good for the documentary community? I don’t know.

Reuters is just now reporting that a quartet of the nation’s largest radio station groups may imminently settle with the FCC over an investigation into payola.

The companies amongst the talks? Clear Channel, CBS, Citadel and Entercom – the latter of which is still facing the business end of New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer‘s gun.

We’re all just so sure that after they settle with the Feds, commercial music will be totally awesome again.

The Los Angeles Times today carries an interestingly-timed revelation about the law firm of super-lawyer and person of interest in the Anthony J. Pellicano wiretapping case Bert Fields. A gaggle of Fields’ colleagues at Greenberg Glusker, including Dale F. Kinsella and Howard L. Weitzman are, according to the LAT,

“expected to take seven attorneys with them when they exit Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman, Machtinger & Kinsella in mid-April.”

Of course, this has nothing – nothing at all! – do to with the Pellicano fracas.

As Weitzman put it (in a prepared statement, lest anyone think he’s too spontaneous):

“If we do, it is because we want to go back to practicing in a smaller environment,” Weitzman said, adding that the decision has nothing to do with the federal probe.

And by “smaller,” they do not mean a 5′x9′ cell.

As my colleague points out below, XM‘s decision to delay the launch of Bob Dylan‘s new radio show isn’t good news.

But it appears that the delays couldn’t come at a worse time: Radio Ink is reporting that consumers are starting to identify Sirius as the better choice:

“Programming options are taking a stronger position as the impetus for the purchase decision with Sirius more consistently being sited for its programming. A higher percentage of consumers are now able to mention specific Sirius programming.”

Even though Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin this week called the cost of Howard Stern, the NFL, NASCAR frightening, what’s even more terrifying is watching someone else pay them.

Per Reuters on Tuesday, “It’s scary how much they cost, but I would rather have them and find a way to make money with them rather than compete against them,” Karmazin said at the Sports Business Journal‘s annual World Congress of Sports event.

In the meantime, EW just scored an interview with Stern that hit the web a few hours ago. Not that much new: The FCC? “like mobsters.” The Moonves/CBS lawsuit? “vindictive, vicious.” But there is one nugget of good news: Stern has just pitched a show for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on Sirius!

The moment that becomes available, Sirius will be a must-have service…for me to poop on!

- The LA Weekly looks at the departure of Dickie Barrett from Indie 103.1, which was apparently not as voluntary as the station has pretended. Anyway, please, God, don’t let him reunite the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

- LA Citybeat covers the Streetwars: Killer phenom. Apparently I’m the only person who finds this game disturbing.

- A Spin writer takes to the letters column of LA Alternative to defend himself against Silver Lake hipsters. Apparently he’s cool because he “wrote the first press in the f–ing country on Giant Drag, the Vacation, the Like and Silversun Pickups, not to mention Dance Disaster Movement, and was the first local writer to do feature stories on Autolux, Moving Units and Earlimart.” Good for him!

- Bob Dylan’s XM radio show launch has been postponed until May, presumably to give him more time to learn how not to mumble.

- This week’s immigration-bill-protesting student walkouts were organized via a website called, you guessed it…

- There’s a late-night-television sleeping-pill ad war going on! Maybe insomniacs will be the last demographic that television reaches more effectively than the internet because of TV’s ability to target a particular time of day.