Gennaro Castaldo Watch: CNN on line two

Surely, with CNN's website calling on Gennaro Castaldo's knowledge-synapse, it can now only be a matter of days until he is fully deployed as Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room's very own Global Tune Expert.

It's the phenomenon of a washed-out old corpse booking a big London tent for fifty nights that has brought CNN to Castaldo's door. What does all this Jackson activity mean?

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for UK music retailer HMV, said Jackson was already reaping the benefits of hosting the concerts.

"Sales of Michael's albums are starting to show a discernible increase, albeit from a relatively low sales base at this early stage. However, if demand is picking up now, imagine what it will be like in July, when Michael actually kicks off his live performances."

Castaldo said sales of his "King Of Pop" album released in August had increased four-fold, while sales of "Thriller" had nearly doubled.

To be fair to Castaldo, he did attempt to point out that "four-fold increase" could mean "sixteen copies compared to four last week", but his excitement at the prospect of possibly selling even more records in July seems to have swept CNN along.

Sadly, Castaldo doesn't explain who he thinks will be buying the records in large quantities this summer - anyone who wasn't excited enough by the coverage of the launch who somehow is excited enough by the actual gig, presumably? "The blanketing of Jackson's ungodly face-hole in March wasn't enough to remind me of his existence, but the dull thud of someone playing Say Say Say quite near the Thames somehow did, and so I shall now buy a record"