Google is in talks to acquire popular video-sharing site YouTube Inc. for roughly $1.6 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The discussions are still at a sensitive stage and could well break off, this person says.

Rumors of such talks were reported earlier on the TechCrunch blog.

• Best Buy Will Now Cater to the Digitial Consumers.
  Best Buy who owns 840 stores in North America said on Thursday it too wants to be in the online music business. The company is teaming up with music service provider RealNetworks and digital music player maker SanDisk to launch the Best Buy Digital Music Store
  
• David Byrne Frontman of Talking Heads talks Music Shop.
  “I imagine I’d be doing the exact same thing a lot of bands are doing: rehearsing and performing, touring in a van. All that stuff.” What technological evolution in the industry has done is allow artists to keep their costs down, stay afloat and continue making music, he said. Byrne said it took Talking Heads at least three albums before he began to feel their sound was being properly captured. With home computer-based recording equipment, the artist can make a fine-sounding recording without outside help. “All these costs start to go away, and the artists – as a by-product – start to learn how to make their records sound the way they imagine them, all by themselves. They’re not beholden to somebody else – some mysterious magician that calls himself an engineer or producer. Right away, they don’t have to be in debt to a record company,” he said.
• Physical CD’s Down while Digital Tracks Increase: Big increases in the demand for digital tracks and albums have kept the overall music business in line with last year’s totals says Reuters. According to Nielsen SoundScan figures for the week ending October 1, marking the end of the third quarter, physical album sales so far this year totaled 370.5 million units, down 8.3% from the 404.2 million racked up in the year-ago period. Digital album sales climbed 115%, with 22.6 million sold through September. Downloaded tracks soared 72%, to 418.6 million
• Myspace Growing Older:Â More than half the visitors to the popular social network site are now 35 or over–up from less than 40 percent last year. The proportion of MySpace’s audience between the ages of 12 and 24, meanwhile, has dropped to 30 percent from 44.3 percent over the last year, according to a study by comScore Media Metrix released Thursday.

• Tower Records is having the biggest sale in its history: Everything must go. Tower’s inventory will sell for about $90 million. Tower owes creditors about $210 million, according to sources. Bidders can offer to purchase the whole company or specific parts and would be free to operate the company or sell off assets and dissolve the firm. Bidders include Trans World Entertainment
• Hardcore/emo act Atreyu leaves Victory Records and has signed a deal with Hollywood Records.
• Rapper Ludacris scored his third No. 1 on the U.S. pop album charts , while Janet Jackson’s new release opened with her lowest numbers in almost a decade, Billboard reported. Janet Jackson’s “20 Y.O.” (Virgin) entered at No. 2 with 296,000 copies, her smallest debut sales week since “The Velvet Rope” started at No. 1 with 202,000 in 1997.

Sales for 2006 are down 5% compared to 2005 at 393.6 million units.

• Ludo who we posted in KOARs Buzz section and is repped by Dan Friedman have signed to Island Def Jam.
• Houston-based rapper Baby Bash has signed a recording deal with Clive Davis/Arista Records.
• KOAR Traxx (on the right hand side) is updated and will continuously be updated. We feel these are the stronger songs written by the “do it yourself artist’s” and we always believe the cream rises to the top.Â
• More analyst’s are predicting that YouTube Is ‘Goin’ Down’. YouTube recently signed a deal with Warner. Such deals with established media companies have probably helped to delay a lawsuit, Bernoff said. “I think media companies would like to see if they can reach some type of settlement like Warner’s.” Some claim the odds are against YouTube, being that it only takes legal action from one large media company to start the site on a downward spiral. Universal Music Group could be that company. Chief Executive Doug Morris told investors last month that he believes sites like YouTube owe the company 10s of millions of dollars for posting music videos and other content related to Universal artists.
• U2 will release its greatest-hits package on Nov. 20th with the inclusion of two new tracks which were produced by Rick Rubin.

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. said on Wednesday it added some 285,000 new net subscribers in the third quarter, fewer than that of rival Sirius Satellite Radio.

Sirius said it added about 441,100 net new subscribers in the third quarter, a 23 percent rise from the same quarter a year ago. XM Satellite said its total number of subscribers rose to about 7.19 million in the third quarter. One year ago, XM added 617,00 subscribers in the third quarter.

Both XM and Sirius are growing rapidly in a pay-radio market, but both are losing money as they spend heavily on technology and entertainment including celebrity hosts — to win new subscribers. XM and Oprah recently negotiated a 55 million three year agreement.

Both are expected to make significant marketing pushes for the holiday shopping season, typically the strongest quarter for adding net new subscribers