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British women spend more money on music that men – £803 a year versus £793 – according to the Great British Music Survey from IPC Media. And while blokes stump up more to own music (£381 against £327) it is females’ purchase of live music tickets (£338 versus £297) and music merchandise (£138 versus £115) that sees them outspend men.

US brands shelled out $1.2 billion supporting live music performances in 2011, a more-than 7% spike on the previous year’s total, says IEG. Live Nation upped its year-on-year sponsorship revenue by 13.5% in the first nine months of the year to $147 million.

“I’ll never leave your pizza burning’, as the Rolling Stones almost sang (‘I’ll never be your beast of burden’). Remember the line ‘the girl with colitis goes by’ from The Beatles’ Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds? Ah, you mean ‘the girl with kaleidoscope eyes’. Not to forget Metallica’s hard-hitting ‘where’s your cornbread muffin?’ from King Nothing (‘where’s your crown, King Nothing?’).

Sport and entertainment events are increasingly being staged together to enhance the overall experience and extend the length of events, and therefore the time that followers stay with the content, says PwC’s Changing The Game report on the global sports market, writes Maria Stadtmueller.

Myspace’s new music player has unmatched access to signed and unsigned artists who need a platform to get their music out, according to Chris Vanderhook, the company’s COO, writes Maria Stadtmueller.

“The new player is our commitment to fostering the artist-fan connection – not only allowing people to play their favorite songs, but also offering suggestions to unearth new favourites.

SapientNitro has launched the world’s first Tesla Coil-powered radio station, Sparkleradio.fm, which enables users to send personalised Christmas greetings via a musical card. SapientNitro London says it ‘Ideas Engineers’ got their hands on the two biggest musical Tesla Coils – resonant transformer circuits – in Europe and sent them, along with a film crew, into the ‘North Frigid Zone’ from where Sparkleradio.fm is streaming personalised messages within video.

Bands are clearly up for a brew. After UK-based The Rifles recently got its very own eponymous beer, from music-loving brewery Signature Brew, and Elbow began selling its Build A Rocket, Boys! Drink, now US pop band Hanson are planning to release a pale ale going by the name of MMMHop IPA, named after their hit nineties song MMMBop.

Specific Media-owned Myspace has rolled out a Myspace music player with features such as built-in search, music recommendations and integration with one-time arch social network rival Facebook. The new player boasts over 40 million tracks, with 30 million exclusives from unsigned artists. Listeners will be able to use the advertising-supported service for free.