Band Aid organiser Bob Geldof said sales had "gone manic" as the reworked version of Do They Know It's Christmas?
became available for the first time yesterday.
Stars including One Direction, Coldplay's Chris Martin and singer Ellie Goulding were among the figures who gathered to record a new version of the track in response to the Ebola crisis threatening west Africa.
Geldof said that the volume of pre-orders for the track ensured it had raised in excess of £1 million within minutes of the song being premiered on TV last night.
Chancellor George Osborne has agreed to waive VAT on the single's sales, and iTunes said it is waiving its fees.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Geldof said: "It's gone manic. That's the digital age. We promoted the single on X Factor, Simon Cowell gave us five minutes of the show last night. Within four or five minutes of leaving the show we had a million quid. That's extraordinary. From what we're seeing now from iTunes it's gone bonkers. The pre-orders were ridiculous."
Further international versions are also to be recorded.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article