Bob Geldof
It took just five minutes for the new Band Aid 30 single to raise £1 million.
Organiser and co-writer Bob Geldof says that the response to the pre-release after debuting on The X Factor on Sunday had been "bonkers" and left him overwhelmed.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4 he explained: "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 of the thing were ridiculous."
Within one hour of being made available for download yesterday, the re-worked version of 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' had hit number one on the iTunes chart.
A physical release is to go on sale on December 8 costing £4, with 100% of proceeds going towards helping the Ebola crisis in West Africa.
Meanwhile, Sir Bob also laughed off claims that Adele had "snubbed" him and the track, insisting he respected her current wishes of keeping out of the spotlight.
He said: "Adele is just parked off.
"She's not writing, she's not recording, she's not doing interviews, she's not doing gigs - she is somewhere else in her life.
"I didn't ring her because I didn't have her number. I would have if I'd had her number, but then she'd have had to explain to me and you don't have to explain to me!
"If that's what you want to do, it's completely correct that you do that, and her manager - who's a very funny guy and a very nice guy says 'she doesn't even pick up the phone to me, you know?'
"And that's right - that is where she's at and there's lots of artists like that so, you know, absolutely fair play."
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