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In 2008 The X Factor contract for the contestants was leaked to the papers and when Simon Cowell was asked about it in the press conference before the 2008 X Factor final he confirmed the leaked contract was authentic. I don't have a link to the contract but I remember the winner gets 15% of single sales, album sales and merchandising. If the winner headlines a tour they get 7.5% of the profit. Based on that Alexandra Burke has probably made max £1m from her record sales. But if you include all the gigs, endorsement deals etc she's defnitely made more than £1m but not the £4.5m mentioned earlier. I believe the sales percentages are for the first album. The cut may be bigger for a second album. Simon said at the press conference that everyone's been happy about the contract for years so Leona probably has/had the same contract. and her first headline tour was last spring and if the same clauses were still in her contract she only got 7.5% from her Arena tour. I'm not a Leona/Alex fan so I have no idea if they have talked about these things in interviews so feel free to correct me. In the US the royalties from radio airplay goes to the songwriter, the producer and the publisher of the song. The singer doesn't get a penny (unless they wrote the song). Similarly here in Finland american singers don't get any royalties from radio airplay because finnish singers wouldn't get anything from the US. Whether this applies to other countries I have no idea.

If the album stays at #24 this week and keeps those sales next week or gets an additional boost from Messy Little Raindrops it should reach 900,000 within two or three weeks. I wouldn't rule out 3 Words reaching one million by year end if they sell it with a reasonable price through christmas.

:rolleyes: Last sunday Dannii wore a dress from her own Project D fashion collection. Also last sunday in the Xtra Factor she was talking about how she gave a copy of her autobiography as a birthday present to Simon Cowell.

There's no denying that Spice Girls were a worldwide phenomenon but going from 10x platinum, 5x platinum to 1x platinum in four years is laughable. The worldwide sales are equally laughable. That happens to novelty acts when the novelty wears off. Even if Geri hadn't left the group they still would have never matched the sales of their first two albums. I much prefer what Girls Aloud have done. First album is the lowest selling and their latest album is the best selling (apart from greatest hits.) I cba googling but probably all the other groups in that list had big debuts and the sales went downhill from there. In addition Girls Aloud still have all the original members. Can that be said about any of the other groups in that list? Regardless of who has sold the most Girls Aloud are the "best" UK girl group IMO. I'm sure they will overtake Spice Girls and SugaBabes in the album sales chart. Knowing how bad the album sales are these days and how people don't like new girl groups GA will stay on the top of that list for a very long time (unless Spice Girls get killed in a plane crash)